About Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging
Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging is an award-winning global leader in innovative diagnostic imaging solutions with offices in the UK and North America.
As industry specialists, they focus on providing safe, accurate and affordable advanced imaging for practicing veterinarians worldwide.
With a shared passion for improving animal health, Hallmarq has partnered with customers since 2000 to support over 285,000 animal scans in twenty five countries.
Its exclusive dedication to the industry, and the exceptional support provided to their customers through its unique Q-Care program, has resulted in increased access to advanced clinical systems for small animal and equine practices worldwide.
Business Challenge
As Hallmarq expanded from one customer site in 2001 to over 125 sites by 2021 it became increasingly clear that their existing technology was no longer fit for purpose. Their office-centric approach was inhibiting their ability to deliver support services on a global 24/7 scale from their UK headquarters and moving to the cloud was becoming a necessity – only emphasised further by the timing of the pandemic. Hallmarq was looking for a solution that met both their immediate needs and delivered the flexibility and agility to sustain the future needs of their business.
Poor collaborative functionality for office-based and field services engineers, limited resilience and security risks were beginning to cause COO Richard Smith some sleepless nights. With office-based mechanical engineers on the manufacturing side and field services engineers working off-site, the inability to reliably work on tasks together and seamlessly, from any location, was becoming an issue, especially with the challenge of servicing 24/7 global customers.
In addition, Hallmarq was incurring the cost of legacy on-prem PBX support and ISDN costs, as well as mobile costs as staff used their mobiles due to the unreliable PBX. There was also a total lack of visibility – no awareness of how many calls, how well they were fielding them or how many staff were needed to service them. Mobile coverage at office locations was patchy and intermittent, meaning staff were unable to reliably access their network and applications. On top of that, the system would fail with more than two simultaneous calls. This was further hampered by their unusual Head Office environment which includes both office space and a factory floor housing large-scale veterinary imaging equipment – scanners and X Rays – that disrupt the WiFi network when operational. This directly affected the employees’ ability to communicate with each other.
The Solution
• Replacing WAN connectivity
• Improving cyber security
• Replacing mobile phones
• Implementing new LAN and wireless infrastructure to ensure that they were able to access the network from all their office locations.
The Benefits
Increased bandwidth – Hallmarq now has 10x the bandwidth which delivers today’s requirements while offering room for future growth.
Access for all – As a manufacturer, some staff have to be onsite to build machines while others can work remotely, so a hybrid approach was key. Improved LAN, WiFi and mobile coverage allows them to work effectively from their offices while the remote working solution enables smaller UK sites and home workers to securely connect into the corporate network.
Immediate ROI – Consolidation of suppliers and services meant Hallmarq quickly enjoyed a return on their investment in the form of reduced support costs, improved resilience and reliability and reduced operational costs through the deployment of remote/homeworkers. This has led to improved employee satisfaction, improved productivity, and greatly improved customer experience.
Ease of use – the solution fully integrated with their CRM, Microsoft Teams – their chosen user interface/endpoint – and the global, feature-rich, and highly available 8×8 platform at the back end.
Active network refresh – Hallmarq engaged Charterhouse to upgrade their phone system, but we delivered a refresh of their entire active network infrastructure to offer a meaningful resilient solution with genuine diversity.
Enhanced customer experience – Deploying a contact centre with detailed management information enabling a centralised, structured way of working delivered a significantly enhanced and consistent customer experience with a measurable SLA.
Actionable insights – Hallmarq can now see resource requirements 24/7, the global performance of the business and have the insight they need to look at expanding into further geographical locations.
Working as Partners
Furthermore, COO Richard Smith has now addressed the problem of those sleepless nights and says:
““From the outset of our technology journey with Charterhouse the team has listened to our needs and provided sound technical advice around the best solution for us. It is this technical knowledge and our trust in it that we have come to rely on as much as the products themselves.
Working together as partners we have developed a strategy for both an effective, secure and reliable global communications solution that suits our needs as they are today and as a solid platform upon which we can build and adapt to the ever-changing digital environment of tomorrow.”
