Bramco Inc.

When a heavy-equipment business depends on quickly responding to inbound phone calls, that phone system needs to be responsive, seamless, and have an ironclad disaster recovery plan.

Inbound calls are the number-one revenue generator for Bramco’s business, and connections between locations are critical for getting customers what they need, on time. With 14 locations in four states, Bramco had accumulated nearly 20 separate phone systems, driving up management, communication and hardware costs. If one system went down, it could take hours or days for a repair to be completed which had a major impact on business.

“Whether people are calling to service, rent, buy or sell equipment – we need that call to get to the right person at the right time,” said Bob Roberts, IS Manager, Bramco. “It was time for us to streamline and simplify.”

Together, Bramco and Matrix Integration determined that the company needed more than a simple upgrade – it needed a coordinated, comprehensive solution, including a disaster recovery and redundancy plan to ensure the phones would keep working even if the entire system went down. Matrix Integration developed the overall upgrade and backup strategy and led the equipment procurement process. To save costs, Bramco requested to be as hands-on as possible, doing much of the on-site location work, while Matrix served in a remote support role.

One aspect of the upgrade plan included transferring all the existing phone numbers, from all 14 locations, into a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk solution – a technology that allows a multi-location, multi-phone line system to function seamlessly using voice over IP.

“Some of the remote locations were with small phone providers, which was a challenge,” said Pete Mikiten, Account Manager at Matrix Integration. “We have extensive experience creating collaboration and communication solutions, including negotiating with telecom carriers. That gave us a strong advantage when it came to creating a solid, unified system for Bramco.”

At the end of the project, all of the remote phone systems were eliminated and replaced with a fully virtual, redundant and interconnected phone system.

• The SIP trunk solution greatly reduced communication costs by reducing the number of circuits needed for a unified system.
• The SIP trunk/consolidated solution drastically decreased the number of communication providers needed for the distributed/remote systems, and eliminated the administration costs and time necessary to pay monthly phone bills, exercise renewals, etc.
• Hardware costs were significantly cut, due to the elimination of individual, remote phone systems for each branch.
• Ongoing repair and maintenance costs were reduced, including the elimination of travel time between locations for repair, by implementing a centralized solution.
• Centralized management and administration of the phone system has cut hours of upgrading system and application software versions, while also offering the convenience and productivity enhancements of making company operations changes to a single system.

But the most important result is that Bramco now has a fully redundant telecom solution that stays up and running in the event of an outage. If the main system goes down, the backup system is activated immediately. When voice communication and customer service are key to a company’s livelihood, the investment in a modern, failsafe and fully integrated telephony system is vital for both cost savings and continued business growth.