The British Safety Council

The British Safety Council (BSC), headquartered in Hammersmith, London, has a number of branch offices throughout the country. With so much collaboration between offices, the organisation was noticing dips in productivity because of poor application performance. They were specifically looking to increase company performance by reducing the impact of network latency and accelerating Microsoft file sharing for its Birmingham office staff.

Frontier Technology worked with the British Safety Council on this project, and was on hand to advise on and install the best solution for them. As an independent solutions provider, we offer impartial advice best suited to our clients requirements. After analysing their infrastructure and requirements, we decided to install Citrix WANScaler. The technology accelerates application performance across wide area networks (WAN). By implementing the solution, end users in the branch office experience LAN-like application performance over the WAN, so have the same IT experience to those at HQ. After installing WANScaler, staff in BSC’s Birmingham branch reported a dramatic improvement in application and data response, allowing the sales team to be more productive and resulting in fewer IT helpdesk calls.

“The time taken to complete simple tasks such as attaching files to emails, copying material and opening applications, was reduced by 75 per cent,” said Steven Ward, IT manager at BSC.

“Speed and accessibility are crucial to any business, but with so much collaborative work undertaken between our HQ in Hammersmith and branch office in Birmingham, the efficient delivery of key applications and files is essential,” Ward concluded.

“The BSC had previously increased its bandwidth to try and combat its slow application response rate, but this was a costly exercise and did not significantly improve performance,” said Rafael Khokhar, consultant at Frontier Technology, Citrix’s partner. “The BSC uses ADSL links with variable link speed and contention, which impact performance throughout the day. As such, WANScaler proved a more suitable fit, and the benefits were realised instantly.”

The BSC plans to implement Citrix WANScaler across its branch office network around the country.