Making the world a better place is a challenging mission for any organisation. Non-Profit organisations are built on meaningful missions, promises, and values, with a focus on transforming the planet we know for the better. However, these non-profits face a number of challenges, from issues with lack of funding, to trouble with promotion.
One of the most significant challenges facing non-profit organisations today is figuring out how to keep team members aligned, supported, and capable of collaborating effectively. With charity workers often distributed in a host of different environments, it can be difficult to keep the flow of information in any non-profit running smoothly.
When one of the UK’s biggest non-profits, The Big Issue, decided they needed help connecting teams, and supporting their users, they turned to RingCentral for help.
The Search for Reliable Communications
The Big Issue is one of the better-known non-profit organisations in the UK, launched to respond to a social crisis in the country. This publication allowed some of the most vulnerable people in the UK to purchase and sell a magazine, keeping 50% of the cover price for their bills. Since then, more than 100,000 vendors have started selling the Big Issue, with over 200 million copies distributed.
Around 15 years ago, The Big Issue went a step further with its growth plans, launching the “Big Issue Invest” program, which has now directly supported more than 400 charities and social enterprises. Considered by many to be a British icon, paving the way for a transformational future, The Big Issue innovates for social good.
With such important work to do, The Big Issue team needed access to a reliable phone system, capable of working anywhere their team members would need access to consistent communications. Unfortunately, the solution the team had been using was starting to grow increasingly outdated by the time the pandemic hit.
Dealing with an Outdated Phone System
When the Big Issue team first purchased a set of on-premises phone systems several years ago to support a network of offices throughout the UK, the purchase seemed like a positive step forward. Unfortunately, the legacy system eventually began to create significant problems – too serious for the business to ignore.
According to Jacek Papciak, The Big Issue Senior Network Engineer, the on-premises system was reliant entirely on the office’s power supply. Unfortunately, the area where The Big Issue does the majority of its work experiences a lot of power cuts, sometimes lasting for long periods of time. When outages occurred, the team was dealing with a complete lack of access to any phone service.
Because the phone hardware in use served more than one location, a power cut in one environment could also lead to diminished phone service for many other offices too.
What’s more, though the legacy phone system did support employees in accessing phone service via mobile and desktop applications, both of these apps often suffered from issues. Eventually, the apps would often fail, leaving employees with very limited phone service from the moment they stepped away from their desks.
The system itself, according to The Big Issue team, was also extremely complex and required significant technical knowledge to leverage. Whenever something went wrong, the team would lose days trying to deal with the problem. Significant expertise was necessary to fix even minor issues or make tiny administrative changes, leading to enormous headaches for the tech team.
Solving Problems with Cloud Communications
After assessing their current environment and the evolving communication world, the Big Issue’s technology team decided it was time to upgrade to a cloud communication solution.
Even before the pandemic started, the organisation was already looking for ways to add more flexibility to its environment. The Big Issue wanted to make it easier for travelling and remote staff members to stay connected and reachable regardless of their location.
The RingCentral mobile and desktop apps allowed users to make and take calls using business numbers from any laptop or computer. At the same time, the technology allowed for a higher level of reliability and peace of mind for the teams. According to Jacek, The Big Issue wanted to make sure team members could continue to access phone services in the event of a power cut.
With cloud-based solutions, it was possible to continue calls during a power cut, so long as battery power was still available for a laptop or mobile phone.
The Big Issue technology team began implementing RingCentral’s technology and work-from-anywhere communications ecosystem quickly. Interestingly, this was also the same time the government in the UK started issuing its lockdown orders for the pandemic.
According to the team, they clearly picked a difficult time to implement new technology (during the start of lockdown). However, The Big Issue believes the transition couldn’t have come at a better time, as it allowed them to continue doing important work during the pandemic.
Maintaining Consistent Operations
While The Big Issue switched to cloud communications for a number of reasons, they discovered a benefit they never expected when the pandemic hit – a new ability to ensure workplace flexibility. Because team members could easily make calls and set up video conferences from a dedicated app, they had a much simpler transition to remote working.
The shift into the remote working landscape was simplified by access to a comprehensive UC solution. Even during the pandemic, the Big Issue’s staff members were able to work more effectively as a team, explore new projects, and come up with new ideas.
RingCentral’s powerful “work from anywhere” solution played an important part in the transition of The Big Issue into a new age of digitally-enhanced operations. According to Group Finance Director Clive Ellis, RingCentral was a vital tool to keep teams working effectively from home during the lockdown.
