Background
Origo, based at Heriot-Watt Research Park North near Riccarton, west of Edinburgh, was formed in 1989 by sixteen leading life assurance companies to facilitate the development of electronic trading in the UK Life, Pensions and Collective Investment market. The business and technical standards that they develop and maintain make it possible for Financial Services companies to exchange data with their partners electronically in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Origo’s mission is to facilitate industry collaboration and agree a uniform strategy with representatives from throughout the Financial Services sector that will help the implementation and use of eCommerce across the market. Without such a strategy, the industry would become a chaotic mix of disparate, non-linking systems, with support costs rising to unsustainable levels.
Origo is working with product providers, software providers, financial advisers and portals to identify and define those elements of processing and information distribution that can be made common across the industry.
Issues
Due to increasing staff numbers and a transfer in of the previously outsourced customer services department, Origo had outgrown their 2Mb leased line internet connection. The Unipass subsidiary which manages work flow and support requests for 24,000 registered customers via proprietary software was finding the internet connection too slow and this was adversely affecting their efficiency. There was also a growing requirement from the team developing standards for higher bandwidth connections.
Solution
Scotland Online, a Scottish based internet service provider (ISP) and wholesale customer of Atlasconnect Ltd, was aware of the public sector investment in new dark fibre to every building on the park and also the presence of a new co-location building where telco connectivity was possible. Working with Virgin Media as their wholesale partner, Scotland Online proposed a guaranteed 4Mb flexible ethernet-based internet connection with the ability to burst to 10Mb when required. Scotland Online was able to create a mini point of presence in the co-location building and then “light” the dark fibre between Origo’s offices and the co-location building. Not only does this allow them the flexibility to increase the bandwidth dynamically as required, but they can simply add additional new customers on the park by connecting up the pre-installed fibre pairs at the co-location building.
Key benefits
One of the key benefits for Origo has been the doubling of their bandwidth capacity for effectively half the price. They have noticed a significant improvement in the speed of connection which should allow their staff to operate more dynamically and efficiently, hence improving customer service. The flexibility to burst beyond their guaranteed bandwidth has operated well so far and is an added bonus at times of peak demand.
Origo has been looking at implementing a VoIP based solution within their organisation. The scalability of the solution provided by SOL, and their capability in the field of VoIP, will allow this to happen seamlessly and easily. Origo is confident that with SOL as their communications service provider, they will be able to offer additional internet-based services to their financial services industry stakeholders over the coming years.
Mike McHale, account manager at Scotland Online, said:
“After liaising closely with Origo it was clear that the company needed a robust and flexible solution that would allow it to accommodate further growth. The Atlas infrastructure that was already in place at Heriot-Watt research park enabled us to provide Origo with just this.
“Not only did we provide a guaranteed 4Mb internet connection but we also ensured that it had the ability to burst to 10Mb as and when required free of charge. I’m delighted that as a direct result of our work, Origo will now be able to grow and expand its service offering.”