Originally established in 1898, RPC (Reynolds Porter Chamberlain) is an international law firm. The firm has approximately 900 employees, with offices across London, Bristol, Hong Kong and Singapore. RPC is recognised as a leader in industries ranging from retail to insurance, technology to media, and well beyond.
Purpose of Implementation
RPC worked with Mobliciti to renegotiate their mobile contracts through their Virtual Mobile Manager (VMM) service and replace outdated devices with a new fleet of iPhone 11s. In parallel, RPC transitioned to Microsoft Intune to get the maximum benefit from their existing Microsoft licences. Mobliciti also optimised RPC’s Wandera (data management) policies to realign with the new airtime contract to prevent bill shock.
Key Benefits
- Negotiated a new contract with RPC’s existing carrier, reducing UK mobile airtime spend by 51%
- Refreshed, staged and deployed 700+ iPhone 11s to a fully remote workforce during lockdown.
- Seamless migration from legacy UEM to Managed Microsoft Intune
- Proactive management of existing Wandera solution
- Single expert partner to run RPC’s complete end-to-end mobile service
Case Study
As a UK top 50 law firm, RPC had a sizeable and varied fleet of mobile devices, ranging in age, model and setup, including a large quantity of outdated iPhone SEs. Managing such a range of devices proved increasingly problematic, with their greatest issue being “bill shock”.
Employees travelling globally for work were often doing so without the correct tariffs or zoning, resulting in unexpected and excessively high bills.
RPC, therefore, took the opportunity to not only replace their older devices with new iPhone 11s, but also conduct a full review of all of their existing airtime contracts, both in the UK and globally.
Choosing Mobliciti
Having previously approached mobility as a number of separate activities, RPC were keen to bring some of their key requirements together to create a more coherent strategy. This included refreshing their entire mobile phone estate, migrating to Microsoft Intune, and ensuring Wandera was deployed on all devices for data management. Ultimately, they wanted a single partner to help manage this significant change and ongoing management.
Following a tender process, Mobliciti’s Managed VMM Service was selected as the ideal solution for RPC’s challenges. Having previously worked with Mobliciti on a number of past projects, RPC’s Head of IT, Andy Frost, also felt that Mobliciti were able to provide the personal edge and were always keen to engage and assist.
By launching a refreshed mobile fleet through a single partner and service, RPC would ensure that they were getting the most out of their mobile investments whilst delivering the best possible service to their people.
“The expertise that they have in the arena, the fact that they are very legal-centric so they understand us as a firm and our beliefs. I felt that from a company perspective, Mobliciti are the right fit for RPC.” – Andy Frost, Head of IT, RPC
A Fast Deployment
RPC was working on a tight schedule, with a quick turnaround on the project. The project between RPC and Mobliciti was agreed in October 2020, with rollout expected for the beginning of 2021.
As part of an upheaval of RPC’s existing services, Mobliciti delivered a full strategy to keep employee devices secure, functional and cost-effective, including VMM, Microsoft Intune and Wandera. These services all function collaboratively and were part of a wider IT strategy between RPC and Mobliciti. As part of the project, Mobliciti migrated RPC’s legacy UEM to Managed Microsoft Intune, as well as optimising RPC’s existing Wandera offering, ensuring that all rules were aligned to tariff parameters to prevent bill shock.
RPC previously had a very mixed environment, with a range of managed and unmanaged devices. As a result, RPC wanted to apply a single standard to all devices. By taking advantage of the VMM service, Mobliciti staged and deployed a new fleet of iPhone 11s to a fully remote RPC workforce. Thus, freeing up RPC’s IT team to focus on more important issues at hand.
With new devices in hand, RPC can rest safe in the knowledge that employees are able to work efficiently and securely from anywhere.
“It was exceptionally challenging. But Mobliciti and the team stepped up and delivered which was a terrific achievement for everyone.”
Enabling Employees and IT Teams through VMM
Beyond the mere aesthetic benefits of new iPhone 11s, RPC’s IT team has also gained greater control over devices and security. RPC are now able to deploy and control mobile applications within their estate far easier than before, with an Intune catalogue of apps, acting as their central place for applications. This makes it far easier to push out applications to employees and control the security around the devices.
Under VMM, RPC’s airtime spend has significantly dropped, with the law firm identifying a monthly UK airtime contract savings of 51%. Savings for their airtime contracts were globally renegotiated, the Hong Kong office saw a saving of 54% and Singapore saved 52%.
Savings in the UK have been maintained since VMM was initially implemented and have been consistently delivered to the law firm.
Many businesses find their IT teams are often overstretched due to an ever-increasing demand for IT resources from across the organisation, coupled with limited IT staff numbers. Mobliciti were able to provide a suite of resources, as well as conducting the admin that would’ve taken up a large part of RPC’s IT team’s time.
By trusting Mobliciti to supply VMM, Microsoft Intune and Wandera, RPC has established a trusted strategic partner for their mobility operations.
“I don’t understand why companies in this day and age still prefer to give all of their phone bills and contracts to the procurement team to sign off. Having someone with Mobliciti’s expertise looking at our contracts and phone bills at a granular level, gives RPC a much better understanding of where our mobile costs are being spent, therefore giving us better control overall.”
About VMM
Mobliciti’s Virtual Mobile Manager is designed for businesses that require hands-on and experienced support to ensure that mobile services, devices, costs, and usage are optimised and proactively managed on an ongoing basis.
The VMM service combines experienced mobile administration resources, advanced management tools, usage monitoring, data analysis and commercial market intelligence to provide businesses with an all-in-one virtual ‘mobile manager’ function.
https://www.mobliciti.com/virtual-mobile-manager-by-mobliciti/