Teletext Holidays has been bringing British consumers great value package deals for 20 years through TV and online and today it continues to deliver great deals through its website and mobile site. Teletext is one of the oldest names in travel and prides itself not just on aggregating the widest range of package deals but on always putting the customer first & delivering exceptional service. A high availability infrastructure is absolutely essential to the smooth running of its operations & the maintenance of its demanding performance standards.
In 2012, Teletext undertook a significant streamlining of its whole organisation as a strategic response to changes both within the market and the business itself. Its IT team was tasked with a number of challenges as a result, and operations manager Mariusz Nowak approached Redcentric to see how we could assist the company going forward. During initial discussions, we identified a number of key requirements. These included:
As Mariusz Nowak explains, “We were being asked to engineer a fresh IT platform that was more closely aligned with the needs of the consolidated business – a platform that had to deliver at the highest levels but with a degree of economy.
With our in-house team increasingly focusing on the front-end product, we also needed to be able to bring on stream technologies and skill sets to support our back-end, without ever having to own that overhead. We saw Redcentric’s managed service portfolio as an assured way of rising to both of these primary challenges.
The major project was the complete overhaul of Teletext’s data centre capability. Over 100 aged physical servers previously housed on-premise were stood down, with three dozen new servers moved to within Redcentric’s London data centre.
These are monitored 24/7 and housed within one of the most secure facilities in the UK. This was followed by new connectivity arrangements, with Teletext opting for the fully managed networks service (LAN, WAN and firewalls) to further reduce its in-house IT load.
A third initiative, to cover a complete mobile telephony solution, is currently being planned.
While Mariusz Nowak has been very impressed with the availability and performance levels of the new infrastructure, and appreciative of the extra redundancy and continuity Teletext is enjoying, he is keen to stress that it has been the relationship that has been the real differentiator.
“Where Redcentric wins is essentially in its people and their understanding of a commercial partnership – it’s not just about what is delivered, it’s about how it is delivered and supported and improved and taken forward. It’s about positive communication and proactive account handling – the fact that we only really have to talk to our Technical Relationship Manager to feel connected to the whole organisation, and to have things happen, and issues solved, is critical to the success of what has for us been a new outsourcing venture.”
Where Redcentric wins is essentially in its people and their understanding of a commercial partnership – it’s not just about what is delivered, it’s about how it is delivered and supported and improved and taken forward.
Mariusz Nowak believes that the partnership with Redcentric has delivered against all his original objectives and that he can now confidently look to leverage more Cloud services as the demands of the business dictate.
Reduced costs – Teletext estimates that they have achieved a 25% reduction in data centre costs alone, with further savings accruing from reduced overheads as IT staff are redeployed away from low-value work, and from a streamlined single source supply arrangement.
Improved strategic capability – Teletext wants to be able to do more with less in order to maintain their top flight status in the holiday market. The effective ‘on demand’ nature of Redcentric’s services means that Teletext can continue to develop its IT base in line with its business requirements quickly, effortlessly and cost-effectively.
Enhanced business support – Responsiveness, commitment and honesty underpin the Redcentric approach. So 24/7 Teletext is benefitting from help and support from those that genuinely understand how mission critical IT is to the organisation – and will work professionally and tirelessly to ensure problems are quickly resolved and requests are promptly met.
Increased team utilisation – The passing over of the management and maintenance burden of both data centre and networks has allowed Teletext to focus its IT skills where they’re most needed, on the high value front end product, rather than waste them on ‘keeping the lights on’ activity.
Improved confidence and peace of mind – Being under constant pressure to perform and to deliver, regardless of the state of your infrastructure, is not only stressful but can impact one’s ability to plan, as resources and budgets tend to have a ‘shifting sands’ quality about them. By moving to a managed service, where it is accessing the latest technology at a fixed, known price point, Teletext is getting the knowledge and surety needed to be comfortable moving forward.
