Sherry FitzGerald is a Ready Business

Vodafone Ready Business case study
Sherry FitzGerald Group
Sherry
FitzGerald
is a Ready
Business
Sherry FitzGerald and Vodafone partner to
deliver great customer engagement.
Vodafone
Power to you
Brian Dooley,
IT Director, Sherry FitzGerald Group
About Sherry FitzGerald Group
Established:
Over 25 years in business
Headquarters:
Ballsbridge, Dublin
Number of employees:
Approx. 1,000
Industry type:
Estate Agent
A quarter of a century in business, the Sherry FitzGerald Group employs almost 1,000 people,
across 20 wholly-owned branches and a franchise network of 100-plus outlets across the country.
A family of seven separate brands, including residential, new homes, property management and
financial services companies, the Group’s commercial property arm – DTZ Sherry FitzGerald – is
also part of one of the world’s ‘big 4’ global commercial property advisers.
However, to stay ahead of the competition – and in the midst of the recent global financial crisis –
Sherry FitzGerald Group IT Director, Brian Dooley says the company had to “embrace new technology
and communication tools to help drive the business forward”.
The challenge
Dooley, based at the company’s headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, tells how the desire to create a
centralised, streamlined total communications solution saw the Group turn to Vodafone.
“We had come to a point where we really wanted to shift our focus to managing our fixed
telephony, broadband and unified communications in a more centralised manner”.
The challenge continued…
“Historically”, he says, “we dealt with five separate providers, now we only deal with Vodafone.
They’ve become our one-stop-shop for communications”.
Revolutionising the company’s IT architecture, as well as its communications and telephony systems
was helped dramatically by partnering with Vodafone, which included being able to access the
Vodafone Experience Centre in Mountain View, Leopardstown. Vodafone demonstrated the potential
offered in terms of “inbound and outbound calls, conducting video conferences, utilising instant
messaging and presence”, according to Dooley.
He adds, “With Vodafone we could see how all this would be handled in a live environment, and
that made the changeover all the easier”.
Becoming a Ready Business
Dooley explains, “It’s the adaptability that Vodafone brings us, the scalability – we’ve had to introduce
call centres to run with a particular campaign. That could be a tricky process, but by using Vodafone
solutions it’s really a case of ‘plug and play’ and the centre is up and running. Recently, we also had 70
staff moving location. It’s a process that from a fixed telephony point of view would have given us a
huge headache before. Now though, that process can be taken care of almost instantly. There’s no issue,
you just log in to your phone and you’re ready to go. That’s true of staff anywhere within the Group”.
Elsewhere, Dooley talks about the “complete change” in the bids process for applicants looking to buy a
home. “We’re now providing people with real time information. A few years ago if one of our negotiators
was out at a viewing or on the road and they received a phone call from an applicant looking to buy a
house who wanted to know the current bid was on the property it was a drawn out process”.
“We would have had to receive that phone call first, then make a call to the office to find out the current
bid on the home. Then ring the applicant again to confirm the price as well as ask if they can confirm if
they want to make a bid”.
“Then the negotiator has to call back to the office to make that bid and finally another call back to the
applicant to confirm the bid has been received. That’s five phone calls. Now, we take the call, if you’re
in the car you pull over, you have your tablet or phone, you know what the current bid is and you can
place a bid straight away in a matter of seconds”.
Dooley adds that having a total communications solution has made “a huge difference for
presentations and company-wide meetings in particular”.
“Vodafone have become our one-stop-shop for communications across the Group”.
Utilising Vodafone’s cloud-based collaboration services – delivered via Microsoft Lync – the company
can now decide against having to ask employees to travel to its headquarters for meetings, instead
using online conferencing tools to conduct virtual meetings, talks and training.
“People usually lost two hours in travel time to these meetings, which obviously leads to a loss
in productivity. That’s no longer an issue”, says Dooley. Elsewhere, Dooley tells how the total
communications solution mean that calls to any Sherry FitzGerald employee can be directed to
both fixed and mobile numbers, while missed calls are flagged-up via email to ensure vital business
opportunities are not lost.
“Being responsive is the big thing with the customer. If someone calls in and they don’t receive a
call back within the hour, I wouldn’t be impressed if I was them. You want to see enthusiasm from
your potential estate agent”, says Dooley. “You want a company who can provide people real time
information in getting back to them on bids”.
Becoming a Ready Business continued…
With annual turnover at the Sherry FitzGerald Group increasing by 38% since 2011 – Dooley says the
company is “hungry” to continue embracing technology across its vast network of brands. “From
being in a position of watching what we spent, we’re now looking ahead to technologies that don’t
even exist yet to see how they can help us”, says Dooley.
Ready Business results
Through their collaboration with Vodafone, Sherry FitzGerald now have a tailored communications
solution, elements of which include Managed WAN, mobile, fixed telephony, mobile broadband,
tablet devices and hosted unified communications. In addition to this they’ve seen a 65% reduction
in their fixed telephony support and maintenance per annum, as well as a 53% reduction in total fixed
operational outlay. Moving to this total communications solution has also seen Sherry FitzGerald
consolidating from 20 PBXs down to one and lowering annual phone line rental fees from €42,000
to €11,000.
It’s not only in-house employees who have benefited though, those working remotely also have the
ability to access the full Sherry FitzGerald Group sales system, while on the road. The mobile devices
at their disposal offer access to market appraisals, presentations and customer relationship
management (CRM) systems – all in real time. While Vodafone-provided Microsoft Lync conferencing
capabilities ensure the company saves time and money on management and employee talks, training
and meetings.
Sherry FitzGerald employees can now work from any franchise outlet with real time information
being relayed to potential property buyers, no matter where they are located.
To find out how Vodafone can help your business to become a Ready Business,
speak with us today on 1800 855 696