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MORE TH>N is the direct arm of Royal & SunAlliance UK. The company was launched in June 2001 to meet customer demand for a modern, forward thinking financial brand backed by Royal Sun Alliance Insurance Group heritage, expertise and tradition.
Situation
MORE TH>N provides over two million customers with a wide range of financial and insurance products via the Internet and the telephone.
MORE TH>N employs around 2000 employees in five call centres and numerous regional offices across the UK. The company is also served by offices located on the Dean Clough campus in Halifax. Formerly, these building housed the largest group of carpet mills in the country. They are an important part of the industrial heritage of West Yorkshire.
As part of a reorganisation programme to consolidate its office space, the company recently refurbished the Bowling Mill building on the Dean Clough campus. Part of this process involved vital improvements to the company’s network infrastructure.
Dave Kendall, Networks Projects Manager at Royal & SunAlliance, the parent company of MORE TH>N, recalls;
“We wanted to migrate from Token Ring to an Ethernet topology. The existing IBM Type 1 network was unsuitable for modern practices. We needed an environment that would accommodate more staff and give us greater flexibility in its use. Put simply, we needed to be able to plug anything into any outlet, from telephony, building management and security services to data.”
The importance of the building as a heritage site presented a particular challenge. MORE TH>N decided the refurbishment should reveal and retain as many as possible of the original architectural features that had been hidden over the years, such as the curved brick ceilings and metalwork. Doing so would not only enhance the working environment for employees, it would also
acknowledge the building’s heritage and create a harmony with the other mills on the Dean Clough campus.
Solution
To conduct the refurbishment of the network, MORE TH>N selected BT, as their preffered partner for their design and project managemnent expertise. From their own preferred suppliers, BT selected Branch for its innovation, technical expertise and quality installation work.
Kendall emphasises the commitment Branch gives to developing partnership;
“Although our partnership is with BT, Branch welcomed a direct close working relationship which has contributed significantly to the success of the project.”
Branch proposed a cascading programme of refurbishment for Bowling Mill, starting on the sixth floor. This floor presented an unusual challenge as it had been used previously for archive storage and had no false floor or ceiling in which to run cabling. Branch was innovative in meeting the challenge as Kendall explains: “Branch came up with some excellent ideas and worked with the architect and the building contractor to realise them. We settled on their suggestion of open trays with a white colour theme, using white cables and cable ties, to make a feature of the cables rather than try to hide them.”
The mill’s status as a listed building added further restrictions. Architectural features of this top floor, including the original metal trusses of the roof construction, had to be retained. Branch was successful in incorporating each of these features into the solution to achieve an attractive blend of the old and the new.
Following completion of the top floor, staff from the floor below moved up. In this way, the refurbishment work would continue down through the building, “Branch worked hard to help us retain the original features on every floor. The arched ceilings prevented the usual cable runs. Instead, they created cable runs down the centre of the building in a feature-lit spine that also contained the airconditioning and the lighting cables.” Kendall recalls.
Unlike the sixth floor, the challenge elsewhere was to hide the multitude of cables as they ran throughout the office. As Kendall explains, Branch found the solution;
“From the central spine, Branch ran the data cables over the ceiling and down behind dry walling to the dado trunking and the individual outlets.”
Throughout the work, Branch had to ensure MORE TH>N suffered no disruption to its business. The fourth floor presented a particular concern as it housed the communications room that had to be kept working. Branch had to run the cabling from
all the floors back to the interlinks there, without causing any interruption to the communications which would result in lost business for MORE TH>N.
Kendall was impressed, “They worked around the live equipment to help us create new cabling cabinets so that we could build up a new network and migrate floors over as each came into commission. I was never in any doubt that Branch would protect the day-to-day running of our business. Thanks to their flexibility and careful attention to detail we never lost any comms throughout the entire project.”
Branch also demonstrated its ability to collaborate with other contractors to protect tight schedules.
“Branch had to coordinate its activities with those of the other trades. As soon as the central spine on a floor was ready, Branch engineers had to install the network cables despite the dust and muck and everyone working around them. They rose to this challenge on each floor, without any delays,” said Kendall.
“The cascading programme is working perfectly. The project started in August 2004 and is on time
to finish in January 2005. At that point, Branch will have completed a modern futureproof Class
D infrastructure, underpinned by blown fibre and capable of meeting the voice and data needs
of MORE TH>N for many years to come.” He summarised.
Benefits
More cost-effective and productive business accommodation
The work to rationalise and consolidate the use of MORE TH>N office space within the Dean Clough campus and, in particular, in the Bowling Mill building, has delivered significant benefit to the company. This is now a modern environment, capable of housing up to 1000 staff. By consolidating its operation at Dean Clough from three into two buildings, MORE TH>N will achieve valuable cost advantages.
Kendall recognises multiple benefits, “Not only have we reduced our annual accommodation costs, we have also created a more energy efficient building. Branch has been central to this achievement. In particular, they have enabled us to achieve a more efficient working environment. We can quickly change technologies at an individual’s desk and patch the user into a
different service as the need arises. Individuals will be more productive and better able to collaborate with each other.”
Faster response to changing markets
The benefits delivered by the improvements to the working environment and office infrastructure are not limited to internal efficiencies. MORE TH>N is now better able to respond to market pressures and meet the changing demands and expectations of consumers. This is especially important in maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty in the highly competitive insurance markets in which it operates.
“This dynamic network infrastructure allows us to move equipment and reassign desk space as and when we need. It's an unparralled solution to our requirements."
Dave Kendall
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