FARO Singapore

3D Measurement and Imagng Provider Gains Holistic Support from Logicalis Managed Services

FARO Technologies (Singapore) Inc.

Founded in 1982, FARO Technologies Inc. (FARO) develops and markets computer-aided coordinate measurement and imaging devices and software, totalling more than 30,000 installations and 15,000 customers globally. The company’s products enable customers to perform high-precision 3D measurement and imaging within production and quality assurance processes.

Challenges

FARO’s customers operate across a range of industries—from consumer goods and petro-chemicals to aerospace and automotive industries. These customers depend on FARO’s products and solutions to effectively run their business operations while FARO depends on IP telephony as a fundamental communications service to keep it in close contact with customers and partners.

Unfortunately, the company’s access to IP telephony proved to be unreliable. Unexpected downtime was crippling communications between employees as well as with business partners and customers. With IP telephony downtime, even useful capabilities like video conferencing which could be used for product demonstrations to customers were now unavailable. Without access to reliable IP telephony services, FARO’s customer relations, business competitiveness and possibly, brand reputation was being put at risk.

To make matters worse, IP telephony downtime was protracted by poor support responsiveness. "The existing provider’s support service was not up to our expectations," remarked Mr Christopher Han, Information System Manager, FARO Singapore. "In one instance, it took as long as six days for communications downtime in our South Korea office to be resolved."

The quality of support was also making a material impact on the company’s bottom-line, as Mr Han shared, "We were facing potential daily losses in the thousands of dollars due to downtime."

FARO therefore needed to avoid further disruption to its business communications, and given that its contract with the existing provider was coming to an end, it was an opportune time for the company to relook its alternatives. The company began to seek out a communications partner which could match its expectations for service reliability and responsiveness. Given that FARO operates across the region, it would also be ideal for the company to find a service provider with regional presence to support its operations across Asia Pacific. With all its offices consolidated under a single service provider with regional presence, support services could now be facilitated.

Solution

"Logicalis provided exactly what we were looking for; an established service provider capable of providing reliable and prompt IP telephony support services. In addition, it has a strong regional presence in the Asia Pacific market," said Mr Han. As an end-to-end solutions provider and systems integrator, Logicalis also has the capabilities to extend its scope of support beyond IP telephony, as and when required by FARO.

In fact, FARO Singapore had already engaged Logicalis for various IT projects since October 2012, making it the logical choice to take over support for its IP telephony. By 1 April 2013, FARO Singapore had completed migrating support of its systems to Logicalis, with its offices in Japan, South Korea and Thailand coming on-board as well.

Benefits

Logicalis’ regional presence, coupled with its dedicated service managers, has enabled FARO Singapore and the other regional offices to make hassle-free transitions to Logicalis’ Managed Services environment. FARO Singapore now experiences reliable IP telephony service with a reduced risk of downtime. Relying on Logicalis’ support, FARO Singapore’s IT teams have been freed from having to troubleshoot technical problems. Instead, its management and IT departments are better able to channel resources to strategic operations and business planning. They can now continue to tap on video conferencing via IP telephony backed by Logicalis’ support services, delivering more engaging product demonstrations that showcase the company’s equipment and boost the opportunities for sales.

Given FARO’s positive experience with Logicalis and its capabilities for extended support services, FARO intends to consolidate its regional offices, including the one in China, under Logicalis’ umbrella of Managed Services. As for Logicalis, it aims to further enhance response times for support services by assigning on-site technical engineers to FARO’s regional offices. Logicalis’ certified technical engineers will proactively monitor and manage FARO’s regional IP telephony systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ensuring downtime vulnerabilities become a thing of the past for FARO.

Key Success Factors

Delivering quality support services consistently is a hallmark of Logicalis’ Managed Services team. "We’re very satisfied with the performance and quality of support we’re receiving from Logicalis. The support handover at our office in Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Thailand has been seamless," said Mr Han. The expertise of Logicalis’ on-site technical support has also helped FARO to optimise its IT and communications infrastructure, giving its employees peace of mind to focus on what they do best in their respective fields.