The new breed of business

Case study: BT helps Invocom become always on

Running a team of consultants and contractors always has its challenges from a communications point of view. However, these challenges have become even greater over the last few years, with teams needing to collaborate, as well as accessing mails in the office, at home, Case on a client site and being available on the phone. Teams often have to work together on documents, as well as access emails in the office, at home and on a client site.

This is the situation that faced telecoms consultancy Invocom, a professional services company. After experiencing problems with its existing supplier, the company turned to BT to provide secure remote email access and collaboration tools with Business Email Plus Organise and Share.

Invocom supports telecommunications companies by designing new networks and helping to manage those that are already in place. Based in Reading, the company has a team of more than 30 people working with customers across Europe.

“Our employees often use email as their primary means of communication with customers and colleagues, so it’s essential they can access their accounts securely from wherever they are – whether that be a client site, hotel room or home office,” explained Nick Robbins-Cherry, finance manager at Invocom. “We were using a hosted solution, but often had difficulty getting to email – that was unacceptable, so we chose to move over to BT.”

Business Email Plus Organise and Share uses the latest Microsoft Exchange technology to allow users to share information, including mailboxes, calendar, task lists and specified documents, across an organisation. It also offers a company-wide global address book and secure access to email via Outlook Web Access (OWA).

Invocom’s consultants spend around 90 per cent of their time on site with clients, so often have to access email from outside the Invocom network. These networks are generally configured in such a way that it is difficult to access mail servers through the firewall, so consultants have traditionally used dial-up access. With BT Business Email, the team can access their email via

Outlook Web Access in a Web browser, making the task much simpler.

As well as a reliable and easy email access via a Web browser, the ability to use all the advanced features included in Microsoft Outlook, such as shared calendar, was also crucial, as was spam filtering.

“For a team that is working in multiple locations, it’s essential to know what their schedules look like,” said Robbins-Cherry. “The shared calendar allows us to schedule meetings and calls without having to second guess people’s availability.”

As a result, Invocom employees can always get hold of each other, ensuring a closer working relationship and more time to focus on clients.

Click here to find out more about BT Business Email Services.