Minimising downtime for BCP Partners
BC Partners (BCP) is a private equity firm specialising in buyouts and acquisitions financing in Europe and the United States.
The firm invests across all industries. BC Partners was founded in 1986 and is based in London with additional offices in New York City; Paris; Milan and Hamburg.
The Brief
BCP were looking for an AV partner to help with the support and maintenance of their systems to prevent costly downtime. The chosen AV company would be responsible for reviewing the company-wide audio visual installations and setting up a support process including service desk and first line support, remote and onsite engineering support, and proactive checks and upgrades to ensure systems are up to date.
Across the BCP estate the hardware used includes; StarLeaf video conferencing, Crestron control, signal switching and management, audio reinforcement with suitable speaker systems, enhanced audio pick up with varying Shure microphone solutions together with Barco Clickshare and NEC displays. The meeting rooms at BC Partners range from fully integrated boardroom systems through to 4-6 person huddle rooms.
Stephen Grant explained that “AV support is a strategic necessity for our company. It is important that our AV systems are efficient and effective.
Downtime has consequences, for example when systems are being used in negotiations. Plus, investor confidence is important so we cannot risk technical glitches that might affect morale. Good AV supports the strength of our brand.”
Why Carillion?
Stephen Grant adds, “Our relationship with Carillion has grown over the years; we’ve come to view them as a trusted partner, even more so after we worked hard together to eliminate some persistent programming bugs, which proves that continuity has its benefits. Plus, the AV world changes rapidly. It’s impossible to maintain the required knowledge levels in-house, so we value the options and explanations that Stephen Grant added -“They are what I would call – oddly, perhaps – ‘adequately sized’. Carillion has enough staff working across consulting, project managers and support to anticipate and react to our requirements. Carillion is unencumbered by complex processes and their service is personal and personalised.”
“Carillion is very aware of how critical time is to us, so will coordinate construction activity to ensure smooth installation. You can’t expect wall construction to wait because screens aren’t in stock. We have a direct relationship with Carillion that breeds understanding. It’s not like being a number with an inflexible global giant.”
Solution
The Carillion team was able to fulfill these requirements as they offer a range of flexible support services to suit the requirements of many businesses. They assessed the current AV setup both from a hardware and software perspective, offering technical consultancy where required and advising on where faults are likely to arise in the current set up.
As part of the core maintenance services, Carillion Communications was able to provide nationwide support, technical phone support, a next day site engineer if required, unlimited onsite maintenance callouts, inventory, health and compliance reporting, user training and more to ensure that the staff at BCP partners were confident that their AV systems wouldn’t let them down when it really mattered.
Carillion is very aware of how critical time is to us, so will coordinate construction activity to ensure smooth installation. We have a direct relationship with Carillion that breeds understanding. It’s not like being a number with an inflexible global giant.
The Outcome
Dee Reed, MD, Carillion Communications, says, “We work hard to meet all of our customers’ support needs. It’s good to know that we meet even the toughest SLAs for companies like BCP, for whom downtime could translate into the loss of revenue or reputation.
