“I genuinely believe we won’t get the same elsewhere. They’re excited about the work, about our business and where we’re going, and they want to be part of making it a success.”

Mitch Bailey, IT Manager, Austin Fraser

“Sometimes you connect with a company – they get you – but it is rare… many suppliers you won’t speak to more than once a quarter, when you call them up because you want to buy something or there’s a problem. Then in the conversation they might wonder how things are going for you, but it leaves you thinking, well, it would be nice if you occasionally asked…rather than waiting for me to call up for an issue.”

Why aren’t more technology companies attentive to their clients? It shouldn’t be hard. It probably has to do with how interested they are in their clients’ business. Austin Fraser is not intrinsically an interesting business – they’re in the recruitment business – but having locations in the UK, Munich, Austin, Berlin and Dallas increases their fascination – particularly from a communications stand point.

As a Cisco Gold partner, Zen was introduced to Austin Fraser’s Mitch Bailey, after other companies had failed to impress him. “I hired Zen for their specific expertise in the Cisco-Meraki system, which was new at the time and few companies had the experience, but I was really impressed by their attitude and service – enough to invite them to consult on other systems.”

Zen pitched Austin Fraser the managed wi-fi solution from Cisco Meraki and introduced Mitch to the entire Meraki range, including switches, access points and firewalls. “He was interested in looking at all aspects and doing a trial,” says James Hoard-Dobson, “The key benefit to Mitch was being given the tools to manage the company IT estate from anywhere, despite having a small IT team.”

Zen ran successful trial and within a few weeks a proposal was accepted to replace all of their network infrastructure with Cisco Meraki to be fully supported by Zen. Whilst implementing the Cisco Meraki solution it emerged that Austin Fraser were struggling with their broadband speed and telecoms. Zen went on to implement a high speed leased line and deployed 3CX in the first two offices in the UK and Germany.

“Our solutions for connectivity, telecoms and infrastructure provided a platform that could easily be replicated across the globe,” James explains, “Allowing for easy expansion of the company and more crucially, a single comms network.’

Putting so much of their communications in the care of Zen is not a difficult decision for Mitch Bailey and Austin Fraser who are convinced they’ve mad the right choice of partner. “I have to have conversations here where the finance department is always saying when did you last review your suppliers for this or that and could we be doing any better.” he reveals, “But the answer is always no, because although we could probably do better and go rock bottom on supply of kit, we simply wouldn’t get the service I believe we need and enjoy from Zen.”

Solution technical details

• 3CX
• VDC – Virtual Servers
• Cisco Meraki end to end (Firewalls, Switches and AP’s)
• Connectivity
• SIP trunks
• 3rd Line Support