Kwintet invests in a unified communications future with Interoute

The global manufacturer expects to greatly reduce costs by rolling out Interoute Cloud Hosted Microsoft Lync to mobile users across its global offices

London on 25 June 2014

Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest cloud services platform has announced that Kwintet Group, Europe’s leading work wear manufacturer, is using its Cloud Hosted Lync solution to ensure better communication and reduced costs across its global offices. The Kwintet group owns many work wear brands such as Fristads and Kansas and is adding this new unified communications solution to the Interoute IPVPN that connects the clothing giant’s 25 international offices.

With offices in 25 countries from Hong Kong to the United States, reliable and effective communication is a crucial to help Europe’s largest work wear manufacturer not only maintain but expand its market position. The Interoute Cloud Hosted Lync solution will secure the future of the Kwintet Group’s video, data and traditional telephony communications by providing a completely scalable solution.

Flemming Kjøge, Group IT Manager, Core IT, Kwintet Group commented, ”At Kwintet, we have plenty of unusual phone systems because we are a composite family. This is hardly optimal when we rely on maintaining regular contact with our many global points of contact, whatever the time of day. So we had to find a new solution, a modern platform that allowed for much better communication.”

Underlying its choice of solution was Kwintet’s strategy to have a solution that is partner hosted rather than one that requires training for the company’s IT organisation.

Flemming Kjøge explains: “Our IT organisation is very lean; therefore we needed a partner that has the special competencies to host a Lync system. Our goal was to get off to a fast start without having to train staff to deal with a Lync platform first, so it made sense to choose Interoute.”

Moving its telephony to the cloud will help Kwintet to future-proof and scale the business in relation to supply and demand and more easily manage the challenge that future acquisitions bring, of adding increased numbers of people to the global communication system. The partnership with Interoute will initially involve Cloud Hosted Lync being rolled out to the group’s 350 mobile employees, in Kwintet offices in Europe, Hong Kong and the United States. The plan for the future is to roll out the solution to an additional 1,400 employees, as Kwintet’s existing PBX systems are phased out.
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About Interoute

Interoute Communications Ltd is the owner operator of Europe’s largest cloud services platform, which encompasses over 60,000 km of lit fibre, 8 Virtual Data Centres, 11 hosting data centres and 31 collocation centres, with connections to 140 additional third-party data centres across Europe. Its full-service Unified ICT platform serves international enterprises, as well as every major European telecommunications incumbent and the major operators of North America, East and South Asia, governments and universities. These organisations find Interoute the ideal partner for computing, connectivity and communications and developing new services. Its Unified ICT strategy has proved attractive to enterprises looking for a scalable, secure and unconstrained platform on which they can build their voice, video, computing and data services, as well as service providers in need of high capacity international data transit andinfrastructure. With established operations throughout mainland Europe, North America and Dubai, Interoute also owns and operates dense city networks throughout Europe’s major business centreswww.interoute.com

About Kwintet

Kwintet is headquartered in Malmö, Sweden and supplies high-quality professional wear for a variety of uses and industries across Europe, and owns a range of strong brands including Fristads Kansas, Wenaas, ClinicDress/Hejco, B&C, Lafont and Bragard. Kwintet is organised into regions: Nordic (SWE/DK/FIN), Norway, Central Europe (DE/AUT/CH), Benelux, France. Kwintet has 2300 employees and a turnover of €530 million.