Staying ahead of the curve in today’s unpredictable retail market is easier said than done. Even for industry-leading companies with a strong presence in their chosen market, there are concerns to overcome, particularly during periods of growth.
As companies begin to evolve, they face an ever-increasing array of challenges, from problems with supply chains to issues keeping employees connected. Communication systems which once worked for a smaller company can quickly lead to inconsistencies and productivity problems as businesses develop. That’s why it’s so important to have an agile environment in place.
One of the top producers of cooked meat products in Ireland, O’Brien Fine Foods, found itself struggling to overcome a range of issues in recent years. Fortunately, by working with RingCentral to build a cloud-based solution for communications, O’Brien was able to evolve rapidly.
Here’s what happened when O’Brien sought out the assistance of RingCentral.
A Heritage Business Ready for Evolution
O’Brien Fine Foods is one of the most respected food retailers in Ireland and one of the top suppliers of many of the country’s most respected food retailers. The company employs more than 500 people across three separate office, warehousing, and production locations. Though it’s always been a family-run business at heart, O’Brien Fine Foods has grown on a massive scale in recent years.
Unfortunately, as the organisation continued to develop its position as a world-class food production business, its telecommunications system struggled to keep up with demand. According to the Infrastructure Manager for the brand, Eoghan Fitzgibbon, every time the company introduced a new location, it needed to separate the on-site PBX system.
The problem with this strategy is O’Brien Fine Foods quickly ended up with three different PBX systems throughout the business, none of which connected to the rest of the business. Calling across locations, or simply transferring an inbound call to another site became a significant issue.
Cross-site communications weren’t the only problem for the legacy phone strategy either. Because all of the communications in the business were limited to landline and desk phone connections, the staff faced significant limitations in their ability to communicate away from the desk.
Eoghan noted employees were struggling with a lack of access to instant communication strategies when they were on the move, walking the warehouse or production floor. The old system, with it’s desk-bound phones, lacked the mobility the team needed.
An Ever-Increasing Range of Communication Issues
As O’Brien Fine Foods continued to evolve, more challenges with the communications strategy became evident. Several of the sites were located in rural, remote areas of Ireland, and the company frequently suffered from phone outages which lasted days or weeks. In one December, one of the busiest times of the year for the company, the phone systems went down for a significant length of time, leading to lost orders.
When the pandemic hit in 2020 and lockdowns went into effect, O’Brien Fine Foods was quickly identified as an “essential business”, and its facilities were able to continue operating. However, many of the company’s office-based employees still needed to transition to remote work.
