Case Study: Morrisons

Reducing Costs

For the last six years, Kcom have provided WM Morrisons with Managed Services, telephony and data estate solutions for their Head Office in Bradford. Kcom, part of the KCOM Group is now a Tier one (preferred) supplier of telecommunications solutions for all 470 WM Morrisons stores.

As part of this new, three year, contract Kcom will supply all inbound and outbound voice services to the WM Morrisons Head Office including all existing and new stores. In addition to all voice services Kcom is also supplying the ability to manage the costs of this voice estate through their Online Billing and Reporting portal.

Building on their current six year relationship with WM Morrisons, Kcom have developed a bespoke call tariff which, over the life of the new three year contract, will see savings of around 16% on their previous supplier. This is equivalent to them being able to provide a full IT and Communications estate to one of their new stores set to open this year.

The Kcom team created a bespoke solution which included a new and innovative Online Billing and Reporting tool. This puts WM Morrisons at the centre of their communications estate by providing centralised invoice and usage information, from across their telecoms estate, through a single portal.

The flexible interface allows them to view their billing at a high level and then drill down to invoices, stores, telephone numbers or even individual calls. Call data can even be viewed for unbilled calls and is usually available for calls made up until 6pm the day before.

WM Morrisons can use the flexible call reporting functionality to manage specific enquiries and business demands, including viewing summaries of charges by line, cost centre and store by month. They can also identify further savings such as lines that are no longer in use and reduce administration costs by no longer having to analyse lengthy paper bills. The ability to manage their voice estate in such a way that can flex to meet business requirements will help staff save time, and enable them to focus on other business priorities.

Support

As part of the three year deal, Kcom will provide Managed Services where WM Morrisons entire telephony and data infrastructure will be monitored, both from the Kcom Network Operations Centre (NOC) and the Kcom on site team at the head office in Bradford. This provides 24 hour monitoring and provides worry-free management of their critical communications.

Both teams are able to ensure swift resolution to any issues should they arise, and the pro-active monitoring of the estate, means potential issues can be identified and solved before any problems occur.

Kcom also ensured that the migration of all lines from WM Morrisons existing voice supplier was seamlessly transitioned – a complex operation which tool only six weeks to complete, ensuring that there was no overlap with the existing suppler.

Why Kcom?

Phil Tenney, IT Services Director at WM Morrisons says:

“Our relationship and the service we have received from Kcom has always been excellent, and we have always valued them as a supplier. Their solution to provide us with inbound and outbound voice services has enabled us to choose the most commercially competitive tariffs, without compromising on additional benefits we needed such as online billing and management. “

Paul Simpson, Executive Director at Kcom says:

“Creating bespoke and tailored solutions that meet specific and complex requirements is one of Kcom’s core strengths. This solution for WM Morrisons shows that commercially beneficial solutions, which do not compromise on business outcomes or requirements should be what all organisations request from their suppliers. Our solution for WM Morrisons enabled us to address their business challenges; we are confident that we have addresses and helped solve these challenges.”