15 December 2008
A major contractor based in Bedwas, near Caerphilly, is benefitting from new hi-tech support thanks to a grant from Caerphilly county borough council.
Daniel Contractors Ltd are responsible for Welsh Water's huge customer base and can service more than 50,000 customers a year with minor repairs alone. They also install over 25,000 water meters annually and keep the water flowing to all of Caerphilly's business customers and beyond. Their contract with United Utilities is continually improving and it is hoped that greater efficiency improvements can be gained from the new IT support.
Recent changes in government legislation require that disruption is kept to a minimum during trench work and there are new codes of practice in place from 1st April this year. With thousands of customers to track and teams of workers scattered across Wales, the company needed to become more efficient so that they could respond rapidly to the high volume of both contracts and calls from their customers.
Locating all their South East support staff into one central location at Bedwas was just the start. With the help of European Funding, the key to this rapid response team lay in installing a "faster than light" fibre optic cable and linking all calls through the web with a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).
"We felt certain that installing fibre optic cabling would allow us to increase both our capacity and efficiency – our ADSL link was already overstretched. It has also been a real bonus to know that VOIP is much more cost effective than the conventional land line," said Cathy James, Cost Accountant, Daniel Contractors.
Steve Morgan, CCBC Bisnet Manager, said, "I would urge more businesses to embrace new Internet Technologies – whatever type of business you are in. If you are in any doubt about which technology will suit your business, we give free advice and you can 'try before you buy' at the IT Suite, Tredomen Business & Technology Centre."
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