Chevrah Kadisha has partnered with Saicom for an extensive telephony migration and the implementation of a VMware SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) by VeloCloud environment as the largest Jewish welfare organisation in Africa looked to leverage technology to improve its uptime and assist with its fundraising initiatives.
“Our previous system was erratic, did not provide us with high availability, and the organisation only had limited bandwidth. This resulted in us entering an invite-only tender process three years ago that included not only the incumbent provider but also several companies who were making waves in South Africa,” says Levan Moodley, IT manager of Chevrah Kadisha.
What impressed Chevrah Kadisha about Saicom was that unlike the other applicants, it took on the minimum tender specifications and provided additional recommendations where more value could be added to their telephony and connectivity environment.
“They showed us that they could think outside the box. And because we are a cost-driven organisation, they not only came in more affordable than the other submissions but did so while doubling our bandwidth.
“Saicom has replaced our previous solution on a like-for-like basis across voice and data and can now deliver even more aggressive pricing given how the market has evolved,” says Moodley.
One of the challenges of the project was that Chevrah Kadisha would migrate from an on-premise PABX offering to a cloud-based one. This required moving almost 500 seats across three campuses into a cloud offering.
“Our biggest concern was having access to reliable connectivity. However, the availability of the cloud-based Saicom PABX offering was unmatched by any on-site solution we had seen. And this yielded good results as the stability and availability of Saicom have resulted in zero outages on our PABX in the three years we had been running the solution.”
Furthermore, the organisation moved from an MPLS network to SD-WAN to gain access to additional security benefits as well as network flexibility.
“Saicom delivered a seamless integration into our environment, and their willingness to find a solution, went above and beyond our expectations. This commitment to partnership reinforced our belief that they were the right service provider for our organisation. Saicom delivers the personal touch we had been looking for.”
The project team at Saicom put in the extra time and effort across the telephony and network migration and even assigned two project managers to the account.
“We now have a high availability solution and the bandwidth to address the strategic priorities of our organisation more effectively. In total, we have had a 99.98% uptime since partnering with Saicom. Consider that the downtime translates to only six hours spread out over the period, this speaks volumes of their ability to deliver. Saicom has enabled us to stay current with technology and continue driving fundraising effectively by providing our team with the latest tools available to differentiate us in the market,” concludes Moodley.