Telefónica UK announced that it has been awarded a prestigious contract by NAAFI, the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, to upgrade its existing ISDN network with a flexible, secure and fully managed IP VPN solution. Under the terms of the three-year contract, valued in excess of €1m, NAAFI will utilise Telefónica UK's MPLS IP backbone to implement an IP VPN solution specifically to support its newly integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system across the whole of its international base. The contract with Telefónica UK is a result of NAAFI's 'Programme of Change' encompassing the critical aspects of its core business. Significant amounts have been invested in the upgrade of its facilities in the UK and around the world to take NAAFI into the 21st Century, reinforcing its commitment to supporting British servicemen and their families.
Utilising Telefónica UK's IP VPN solution, NAAFI expects to experience improvements in business process efficiency and productivity by enabling personnel to access, record and track stock, supplier deliveries, invoices and payments for all its stores at any time, from any location. The first two phases of network installation are already complete covering approximately 80 sites in the UK, Germany and Northern Ireland.
"Following an intensive evaluation process, Telefónica UK's IP VPN solution was selected over competitive offerings for its refreshing approach to business improvement," commented Chris Baxter, NAAFI's IT manager. "The company demonstrated that it could not only deliver a solution, but own it. This was extremely important as a number of incumbent suppliers required management during the transition phase. This, together with a cost advantage over other suppliers, and the ability to demonstrate a robust, managed support service convinced us that we should enter into a partnership with Telefónica UK."
NAAFI's integrated ERP technical solution was previously deployed on an Internet only VPN solution, relying on ISDN lines into each store with data transfer on-demand via a dial-up connection. NAAFI recognised the performance and cost limitations of the existing network for addressing future requirements. Additionally, an increasing number of mobile devices require instant access to information centrally located at NAAFI's data centre in Amesbury, Wiltshire UK, and for finance teams it is imperative to immediately retrieve the latest invoices and payment details.
By implementing Telefónica UK's IP network, NAAFI will benefit from an 'always on' Virtual Private Network providing both Internet and Intranet communications, enabling site-to-site communication, without the complexity and security concerns of Internet VPNs. This is particularly important to Western European countries, where the majority of NAAFI's stores are located.
Telefónica UK's IP MPLS VPN solution uses broadband and leased line access technologies and includes a managed network gateway and firewall ensuring protection from external intrusion. The solution enables easy configuration, ready scalability and security in a single, cost-effective platform. It also offers 24/7 network availability, full support capabilities, wide scale geographic coverage via Telefónica's Global IP Network, and all within a fixed price contract. Telefónica UK has already managed high bandwidth connections into NAAFI's central sites in the UK and Germany, delivered ongoing connectivity into Northern Ireland and completed roll out of the solution into all other stores across Germany. This initial installation will act as a launch pad to allow other NAAFI sites to be integrated into the solution to achieve significant cost and performance benefits.
"We are extremely proud to be a part of NAAFI's International Programme of Change," commented Tony Shields, sales & marketing director, Telefónica UK. "We believe a key factor in the selection process was our demonstration of understanding NAAFI's service needs, as well as the
