Aspen Insurance
The Client
Aspen Insurance UK Limited was established in London in June 2002 to serve the needs of the London and wider UK insurance and reinsurance market. It is the largest business in the Aspen Group. The company trades under the names of Aspen Insurance and Aspen Re, writing a range of specialty insurance and reinsurance lines respectively. Aspen Insurance UK Limited is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited ("Aspen"), which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Aspen has nine global offices and employs approximately 400 staff.
The Challenge
Previously Aspen had leased all of their IT requirements, including desktop equipment, networking hardware, services and even IT staff. In the Autumn of 2004, a planned move to new premises in London provided the opportunity to bring all IT requirements and services in house and build a completely new IT infrastructure for the UK . A secure and reliable network infrastructure was required to enable connectivity between offices in London , USA , Bermuda and a large proportion of home-workers. In addition, everything from printers, desktop computing, telephones and networking hardware had to be procured.
With no existing IT team in place, Aspen brought in Andrew Turner (Head of IT) and then James Harrison (Technical Design Manager) in November 2004 to rise to this enormous challenge. The existing UK contract was due to expire in June 2005, so the team had just seven months to complete the project.
James Harrison was tasked with the responsibility for managing the rollout of a centralised IP infrastructure. His first step was to make contact with leading technology vendors and Aspen selected Cisco Systems as their partner of choice for voice and data networking. They believed that Cisco Systems had the technology to help them build a leading edge solution that would help to flexibly manage future requirements. With no existing IT team in place, the wide availability of Cisco skilled IT professionals also influenced this decision.
The Solution
As a Cisco Gold Partner Logicalis were chosen as Aspen's network solutions provider because of their breadth and depth of capability across a number of technologies. As the solution was being built for a new office Logicalis' laboratory resources and warehousing located in Slough were to be utilised to help expedite the project.
Jim Doran of Cisco Systems commented, ‘As the timescales for this project were particularly tight Aspen needed a supplier who had a unique understanding of the insurance market and its drivers, so that the sales process could be rapidly collapsed. Logicalis immediately appointed an IP Communications specialist to work with the internal team and Cisco Systems to design a solution and a rollout plan.'
In addition, Logicalis' experience of IP Telephony (IPT) and advanced technologies was also a deciding factor. James Harrison of Aspen commented, "I was impressed with the initial consultations that I had with Logicalis' practice team. Their depth of technical knowledge and industry experience helped us to design an appropriate solution in an extremely short timeframe. The team at Cisco Systems also contributed by ensuring that orders for equipment were escalated to meet the tight deadline."
Logicalis' project management team had responsibility for liaising with 13 other suppliers to ensure that the rollout was seamless and implemented smoothly. This task was particularly challenging as Aspen required their 250 staff to be moved to the new building over just one weekend. Any delays were out of the question as Aspen's IT team were flying out to the U.S to begin Phase Two on the following Monday.
Logicalis delivered a resilient LAN infrastructure combined with an IPT solution for 250 users at Aspen 's London HQ, a co-location site in London and the Amsterdam office. The solution incorporated fully secured wireless technology to increase mobility within the office environment. To facilitate improved communication between Aspen 's international offices, Logicalis also deployed a Tandberg video conferencing system.
The Outcome
"Aspen is delighted with the results of the project and particularly with the contribution of Logicalis," stated James Harrison. "This was a unique opportunity which required a complex solution utilising IPT, SAN and WAN technology. I believe that we have one of the most advanced networking communications infrastructures in the UK . Little internal training was required for the IPT and video conferencing applications which have undoubtedly reduced our international travel and communication costs." Mike Cummins, IP Communications Practice Manager at Logicalis commented, "The IPT solution for Aspen epitomises the benefits that can be gained from deploying fully integrated communications and business process enhancements to drive competitive advantage."
The Future
James Harrison commented, "We will continue to make further savings in the future because the resulting infrastructure is flexible and scalable. As a team we can now accommodate new offices, lines of business and react to market changes rapidly." Possible future projects for Aspen also include fully integrated desktop video telephony and business video streaming for the purposes of corporate messaging, CEO broadcasts and training.
