Cable & Wireless’s Irish operations have won an IP telephony and voice minutes deal valued at €250,000 with Waterford-based IVAX Pharmaceuticals.
IVAX expects to make annual savings of around €200,000, resulting in an envisaged 100pc return on investment within 15 months.
IVAX Pharmaceuticals is a member of the TEVA Group, which had global sales of more than €4.1bn in 2005.
In Ireland the company manufactures asthma inhalers, generic tablets and capsules at its Waterford base, where it employs around 750 people.
IVAX has recently made significant investments in its Waterford campus, making it one of the most technically advanced facilities within the worldwide TEVA group.
The company has three buildings spread across Waterford Business Park and the new network enables workers to work between premises and be more proactive using a unified messaging system to access voice, emails and faxes from any location.
In particular, research data and management information can be shared amongst the people that need it and people can work collaboratively as part of virtual teams.
IVAX Pharmaceuticals’ IT and telecoms manager Gerry O’Meara said that the deal has resulted in an IP telephony system that “integrated seamlessly with our existing infrastructure and has dramatically reduced our total cost of ownership”.
As part of the deal, Cable & Wireless migrated IVAX’s existing digital phone system to an IP telephony platform. The new wireless phone system enables IVAX colleagues to make free internal calls from any part of the campus.
As well as this, the single billing service will result in reductions in call and line rental charges.
“In a globally competitive market, IVAX Pharmaceuticals has shown strength and consistency in its development over the past 10 years,” Cable & Wireless country director Noreen O’Hare commented. “Our focus is on ensuring that it maintains this pace of development and growth through constant innovation and best use of communications.”
By John Kennedy
