The Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists modernised their culture and facilities with cloud calling

“We wanted to integrate all of our communication in one place, rather than having separate systems for calling and office productivity. Working with Cloud Direct allowed us to do that. We have now created a flexible and dynamic working environment by leveraging our Microsoft 365 licences through adopting Teams voice. The way in which we work has now been completely transformed – there’s not a single traditional phone handset in sight.”

Robert Reilly, Director of Information Management and Technology, Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists

Who they are

The Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCoG) work to improve women’s healthcare across the world. Founded in 1929, they now have over 16,000 members worldwide. RCoG works with a range of partners across the UK and globally to improve the standard of care delivered to women, encourage the study of obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G), and advance the science and practice of O&G.

Challenges

RCoG was in the process of planning a major office move across London when they decided they wanted to modernise the way they work. They wanted to facilitate secure remote working while still maintaining the productivity and collaboration standards of their office. In addition to this, RCoG wanted to future-proof the way they work, allowing for seamless communication between employees and customers. RCoG weren’t fully equipped to enable remote working due to a major barrier to their desired change — their VOIP system. Their VOIP system required significant investment to upgrade their calling capabilities and as a charity RCoG didn’t have the funds available. Whilst reviewing their current calling system,  many questions were raised around the strategic alignment of their VOIP system and it’s lack of integration with their current Microsoft 365 productivity platform.

Solution

RCoG explored alternative solutions that would allow them to have an established VOIP system in time for their office move. Conveniently, their Director of Information Management and Technology, Robert Reilly, had rolled out a Teams trial to investigate the calling capabilities. After building the business case for Teams calling,  he reached out to Cloud Direct, a Microsoft Gold Partner, to support them in adopting Teams. Cloud Direct proposed an approach that could deliver the Teams Voice project within their required timeframe whilst integrating their current Microsoft 365 license for a unified solution.

Providing a flexible working environment
Adopting Microsoft Teams for their calling and communication has allowed RCoG to provide a flexible working environment for their staff. Allowing them to reap the benefits of being able to work from any location, on any device and still being able to access the information they need to get the job done.
RCoGs Teams Voice deployment was completed ahead of their move. Thereby minimising disruption to the business and enabling them to continue their work remotely, as their Teams Voice system remained available throughout.

Secure remote working
While working on this project, Robert Reilly wanted to ensure that if people were going to be working remotely, that they were doing so securely. In response to this, we assisted RCoG in deploying Microsoft 365’s range of comprehensive security features.  This included the implementation of Microsoft Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) technologies such as Conditional Access, Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) and Intune for mobile device management.

Outcome

So what did all of this mean for RCoG?

Undisrupted office modernisation
RCoG were able to fully implement Teams calling in time for their moving date, making their office move seamless with only 20 minutes of downtime. Robert Reilly, and the wider management team, were extremely impressed with the home working capabilities Teams provided – allowing them to have an undisrupted move.

Already equipped for home working
Shortly after they moved offices, COVID-19 hit. Thankfully, RCoG was prepared. With a secure remote working solution in place, they were able to fully operate the college remotely. Meaning there was no disruption to their business.

Optimising existing licences
As part of this project, RCoG optimised their current IT investment by leveraging their Microsoft 365 licences to transform their telephony system. This enabled them to streamline all their internal and external calling into one system. This also resulted in significant cost efficiencies as they had already implemented Microsoft Teams and were able to take advantage of the in-built security capabilities.

Why Cloud Direct?

Working with Cloud Direct has helped RCoG gain a strategic IT partner, providing them with the expertise they were looking for. Robert said; “Getting access to the right IT expertise is key. And we definitely got that with Cloud Direct”.  Cloud Direct was able to provide the knowledge and capabilities lacking with the previous partner. It’s helped RCoG transition to a modern and secure way of working, leveraging the capabilities of Microsoft Teams to bring everything together.

We’re proud to be recognised by Microsoft as a Calling for Teams Advanced Specialist. If you’d like to find out how you can adopt Teams for calling and meetings, simply get in touch with our experts.