About St. Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral sits proudly at the highest point of the City of London and serves as the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of London. The present Cathedral with its famous dome was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, is Grade I listed and has dominated the London skyline since it was completed in 1710.
In 2019 St Paul’s Cathedral welcomed an average of 1.7million visitors from around the world, who visited for general sightseeing, educational visits from schools or to attend concerts and exhibits. It has hosted some of the major events in the UK’s history including multiple Royal Jubilees, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer and the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher
Business Challenge
The existing on-premise phone system lacked flexibility and functionality, and the necessary upgrade would require significant investment in order to deliver the features and functionality needed.
As a charity, budget is always front of mind for St Paul’s, so they went to market for alternative solutions that would provide similar functionality than the upgrade at a similar cost to achieve maximum value for money.
The pandemic further accelerated the need for digital transformation as all staff from senior management to those on the cathedral floor had to move to remote working when government restrictions forced the venue to close.
The Solution
An 8×8 cloud UC solution delivered all the remote working and collaboration functionality St Paul’s were looking for, integrating features such as video conferencing and in-app messaging within a single platform.
Working with Charterhouse meant that St Paul’s could access all that 8×8 had to offer, as well as the enhanced management and billing services available through Charterhouse.
Assigning a project manager to manage the transition, the Charterhouse team handled the porting of all numbers so that communications could be easily and quickly moved to the cloud and provided staff training to ensure user adoption was as simple as possible.
Total cost ownership of the solution is excellent value – although the monthly cost is higher, the overall cost of the solution is less than the upgrade, and also provides much greater functionality and flexibility.
Outcome
The cloud solution has opened up a new way of working for St Paul’s 100 staff, allowing for additional benefits not available within the existing on-premise solution. It has also enabled the organisation to deliver as much as possible to both visitors and staff within the constraints of the COVID-19 restrictions.
Remote Working: able to work and collaborate remotely, from wherever they are and from any device.
All under one roof: no need for separate licences or applications.The single application handles voice, messaging, video & audio conferencing, mobility and team collaboration. Staff can seamlessly switch from one to the other all within the same application.
Education needs delivered: The schools and family learning department have been able to use the 8×8 video conferencing to show YouTube content and enable off site learning that is as effective and well received as previous in-person content.
User friendly: intuitive interface has required minimal staff training and eased the transition from the legacy system.
Staff empowerment: staff can control their availability, setting the app to allow calls on days and times when staff are working.
Staff anonymity: no need to display personal numbers as the app can display any chosen number eg company number.
Opened up future possibilities: the exciting potential of being able to open up access to St Paul’s from the far reaches of the UK and potentially around the globe.
““The move from on-premise to the 8×8 cloud solution has delivered much more than a new phone system for St Paul’s. Enhanced features that are easy to use and integrate with our other systems has revolutionised the way we work. The multiple benefits from 8×8 have been far reaching and are fundamental in helping us to continue in our mission.”
