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"We save around £10,000 GBP per annum with Kerio Operator... our ability to record and monitor calls has improved our sales effectiveness."
Teniel Pillai, Human Resources Director Encyclopædia Britannica
Forget all your preconceptions, Encyclopædia Britannica has come a long way from those dusty volumes we remember from our childhood. Since 2012 the world's most famous educational publisher has been entirely digital, producing a range of learning products for all levels of ability.
Like all modern businesses, Britannica is continually looking for efficiencies. And in the UK they find them with Kerio.
The UK subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica is based in Southwark in southeast London. From there, a team of 23 looks after sales in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. They're constantly on the phone and online, so that's where they're likely to find efficiencies.
Since there's no room for an IT expert in Britannica's tightly run UK operation, they rely on Nigel Ayres and his team at Daedalus Computing. It was Nigel who proposed Kerio Control as an easy way for Britannica to manage its Internet use.
"Although Britannica had a firewall, the reporting features were poor," says Nigel. "Kerio Control gave them the protection they needed, together with better granularity and oversight of Internet usage. It's a neat solution and supremely user-friendly. One box does the whole thing, and it requires minimal IT skills to run it."
Britannica's Human Resources Director, Teniel Pillai, believes that Kerio Control has improved business efficiency: "Kerio Control is an ideal tool for changing behavior. Our ability to monitor Internet traffic and show people how they use the Internet has increased productivity. By putting lots of measurements in place we've brought about a cultural change within the organization. It's not time-consuming either: I only need to check the reports once a month."
Once users have experienced one Kerio package, they expect the same ease of use in their other business applications. So Kerio was a natural candidate when Britannica decided to upgrade its telephony.
Britannica's active sales teams spend a lot of time on the phone to customers across Europe and Africa. But the costs were rising; they had to replace their old and expensive system with something more modern.
After narrowing down the options, the choice fell to two systems: Kerio Operator and a cloud-based solution used by Britannica's US parent. Two factors were decisive in favor of Kerio: ease of use and hassle-free support from Daedalus. As a bonus, Kerio Operator was cheaper.
"Kerio Operator has all features bundled in as standard," explains Nigel Ayres; "there are no chargeable extras. By moving to SIP Internet telephony, Britannica achieved cost savings all round – on maintenance, support, license fees, line rental, and call charges."
According to Teniel, they're saving around £10,000 GBP per annum.
There are practical advantages too. “Calls are now directed automatically to the relevant person, including staff who are out of the office or working from home,” says Teniel. “Our ability to record and monitor calls has improved our sales effectiveness. We’re able to capture best practice and spread it throughout the sales team. We use the calls of the best-performing staff as model calls in staff training.”
Kerio Control and Kerio Operator have given Encyclopædia Britannica the tools it needs to get on with the job. "From a user's point of view, they're easy systems," says Teniel. "We're very happy with the way they work and with the great support we get from Daedalus."
Nigel Ayres thinks they're great products for an IT support company. "Managing Kerio Control and Kerio Operator doesn't take up much of our time. And both systems are undergoing continuous development. As soon as new features are added, they become instantly available at no extra cost. Support from Kerio is good too. It's friendly, helpful, and inexhaustible. On the rare occasions that I come up against something really tricky, they give me as much time on the phone as I need."
