For more than 100 years, New York Blower has been a leading manufacturer of industrial fans and blowers. NYB carries the most complete product portfolio in the business, and its products are distributed through an extensive worldwide network of more than 300 representatives.
The Challenge
New York Blower’s phone system was aging, and the provider announced that it was discontinuing support for the system. NYB was facing an expensive replacement.
“We were leaning toward staying with our current provider,” said John Mearns, NYB’s manager of information technology. “But we knew that would mean another major upgrade in three or four years, and another full replacement in eight or 10.”
To stay in touch in an expansive manufacturing facility where workers and managers had to be mobile, NYB was also paying for cell phones for shop-floor supervision. “We wanted supervisors on the shop floor supervising, instead of being tied to a desk,” Mearns said. “We needed mobility, but we were also looking to scale back our cellular expenses.”
NYB boiled its needs down to three basic goals: stop having to replace its phone system every five years; control overall costs; and find a better mobile communication system for the shop floor.
The Test
NYB had an existing relationship with Appia Partner STRYD Technologies. As part of his due diligence, Mearns talked to Dan Morse, STRYD’s senior vice president, who explained the benefits of a hosted model.
“John told me what they were facing with their phone system,” Morse said. “We thought we had a better way, and we told them about Appia.”
It would take some convincing. NYB had kept an eye on VoIP solutions since 2000, but had always been unimpressed. “We just didn’t see the return on investment that was always promised,” Mearns said.
STRYD crossed the first hurdle with an impromptu demonstration. “Dan grabbed his own desk phone and brought it to our office,” Mearns said. “We just plugged it in and it worked. Within a couple of minutes, he could dial four digits and talk to his office manager from our conference room.”
“It gave NYB the confidence that a hosted VoIP implementation was worth considering,” said Morse.
But would the ROI add up? NYB compared several options and found that it did — and then some.
“Out of everything we looked at, the first 12 months of the Appia/STRYD solution cost about 15 percent less,” Mearns said. “But over time, eliminating the cycle of update and replacement costs made the real difference. Over the expected 10-year life of a purchased system, this could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The hosted solution came out far ahead of anything else.”
