Regus

BT Engage IT's global support underpins strong business growth for Regus

Business challenge

• Regus is a world leading provider of workplace solutions. A key success factor is the service
  efficiency its staff can provide
• This relies on resilient IT systems, backed by reliable support
• To enable the company to concentrate on its core business, Regus decided to outsource this support
  
  

Solution

• BT Engage IT provides global helpdesk services for nearly 6,000 Regus staff at 950 centres in 70 countries, backed by comprehensive reporting
• Staff contact the helpdesk via telephone or email and Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections give BT Engage IT remote visibility into all Regus sites
• A 'trouble ticket' system helps track receipt, processing and resolution of some 6,000 jobs a month
• A dedicated BT Engage IT project team has been set up to work proactively on new ways to improve support systems and business growth. Some of the projects include a pilot of SharePoint, AD Schema Upgrade and a hardware software asset management review. Other services include anti-virus and Active Directory support
  
  

Benefits

• Regus benefits from a robust IT infrastructure backed by reliable support and IT staff receive detailed reporting to check against Service Level Agreements
• This helps maintain the high service levels that Regus users expect
• That makes Regus more competitive and supports its growth curve, which has recently hit 50 per cent a year
  

"BT Engage IT understands our business and its efficient support enables us to deliver the high levels of service that our customers expect. In turn, this provides a firm foundation for the 50 per cent annual growth that our business is currently achieving. "

Mike Brockington, Chief Information Officer, Regus

Case Study

Regus is the world's largest provider of workplace solutions, offering the widest range of products and services that allow individuals and companies to work however, wherever and whenever they need to.

Operating over 950 business centres across 400 cities in 70 countries, Regus provides products and services that include fully furnished, equipped and staffed offices, world-class business support services, conference and training facilities and the largest network of public video-conferencing rooms, all serving over 200,000 clients daily. Today, more than half of the Fortune 500, along with thousands of small and medium-sized companies, are outsourcing some part of their office requirements to Regus.

To maintain the high standards that typify Regus service, its staff need a robust IT infrastructure with support they can rely on. They can now achieve this with BT Engage IT.

Cost Effective Flexibility

"We specialise in providing serviced workplace solutions to our customers and we are not IT experts, so we decided that the best and most cost effective solution was to outsource our IT support," says Mike Brockington, Chief Information Officer at Regus. "We initially used another third party but they did not understand our business. Their engineers did not have the right skill levels, they were not closing the required number of calls and they were not able to provide adequate statistics on their call logging."

Seeking a new solution, Regus issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) and BT Engage IT won the contract because it could offer a flexible, comprehensive service at the best price. A key differentiator was that BT Engage IT had worked with Regus for many years, supplying hardware and engineering support, so BT Engage IT engineers had intimate knowledge of the Regus systems and could add continuity to the mix.

Comprehensive Reporting

"During the first week of operation, Regus received better management information from BT Engage IT than it had from its previous partner in a year. BT Engage IT constantly demonstrates its flexibility and always meets our needs," adds Brockington.
BT Engage IT's main task is to run global helpdesk services for Regus, working from its Letchworth centre to provide desktop support for nearly 6,000 people at 950 centres in 70 countries. With VPN connections to all centres across the world, the 26- strong BT Engage IT team has remote sight of all systems and runs a sophisticated job ticket system.
This enables Regus to track performance against Service Level Agreements and deals with some 6,000 'trouble tickets' or jobs a month.

However, thanks to BT Engage IT's flexibility, its engagement with Regus has grown from predominantly reactive helpdesk support into proactive project work with the formation of a dedicated project team.

Project Taskforce

"We wanted BT Engage IT to work on special projects for us but we did not want that to conflict with the day-to day operational work," adds Brockington. "They have now set up a dedicated project team which is looking at our infrastructure and how we can improve support systems to support future business expansion."

Among current projects is a review of Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory and BT Engage IT is also providing anti-virus support.

Stability and growth have typified the helpdesk services provided by BT Engage IT since it took over the contract in 2003 when there were just 2,600 staff and 380 centres and it is now an integral part of the Regus business.

"Without the support of BT Engage IT, our staff would not be able to provide the high levels of services that our customers expect and we would find it difficult to maintain the 50 per cent annual growth rate we have recently achieved," says Brockington. "We have a valued, ongoing relationship with BT Engage IT based on their intimate undestanding of our business and the fact that they do their job well."

© BT Engage IT 2012