CASE STUDY: Angels Costumes

Titanic. Captain America. The King’s Speech. Game of Thrones. All blockbuster film and TV productions with costumes supplied by the world’s largest costumiers and longest-established company of its type, Angels Costumes. In early 2015, the company chose a Mitel private cloud deployment for its business communications – and Mitel Performance Analytics (MPA) fault and performance management software to manage voice quality and ensure the entire business communications network functions optimally around the clock. Martello’s solution can ensure voice quality for retail for maximum business efficiency.

Situation

• 3 locations with more than 100 handsets
• Need for reliable voice quality during high volume Halloween period in retail store
• Need to easily find the source of voice quality problems reported by users
• Need to avoid downtime for consistent customer service

Solution

• MPA fault and performance management software
• MiVoice Business
• MiVoice Border Gateway

Results

• Detection of voice quality problems before the user is impacted
• Remote access to the network by Mitel partner for simplified troubleshooting
• Confidence that phone system will operate reliably in high volume conditions
• Greater visibility into the network

Organization

Angels is the world’s longest-established supplier of costumes to the film, theatre, and television industries. Chairman, Tim Angel, OBE (Former Chairman of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Former Governor of the British Film Institute) is the fifth generation of his family to head the firm that bears his name. Angels was founded by Tim`s great-great grandfather, Morris Angel, in 1840, as the first source of costume hire for actors attending West End auditions. Angels undertakes over 1000 TV, film and theatre projects a year, and has a staff of over 100.

Outside the film industry, Angels is best known to the general public for being the UK’s largest supplier of fancy dress, from the Angels Fancy Dress flagship store on Shaftesbury Avenue (the site of Morris Angel’s original shop in the 19th Century).

Situation

For almost 170 years, Angels has supplied costumes and fancy dress for film, theatre and television and fancy dress to the general public. Since 1948, when costumes supplied by Angels received a Best Costume Academy Award for Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, Angels has supplied costumes to a total of 36 Best Costume Oscar-winning films including Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Memoirs of a Geisha (2006) and Alice in Wonderland (2011). Angels also supplied costumes for hit titles, The King’s Speech and Sweeney Todd. It is an impressive operation – with a 160,000 square foot facility and two retail locations, Angels owns the largest costume collection in the world, with more than 2 million individual items stocked. This kind of success isn’t accidental – it is built on the consistent delivery of high quality products and attention to detail. It was with this philosophy that Angels approached their business communications system from Mitel.

Working with Mitel authorized partner, Arden Telecom, Angels implemented a Mitel private cloud deployment in which the MiVoice Business and MiVoice Border Gateway software is hosted on Angel’s own servers, providing VoIP telephony for more than 100 handsets in three London-area locations.
Angels knew that keeping their phone systems running properly around the clock could not be left to chance, with so many events on a typical network that can impact voice quality. In fact, when a user reported a problem such as echo, static or distortion on their calls, it could be very difficult for their IT organization to pinpoint its cause. Angels needed data that would confirm the user experience and identify the source of a voice quality problem.

“Since Mitel Performance Analytics is specifically designed for Mitel systems, it gives us a great depth of visibility into Angels’ network.”
Stefan Bagiensky
Chief Technology Officer
Arden Telecom

Solution

The team at Arden Telecom understands this challenge well. That’s why the company has rolled out the Mitel Performance Analytics (MPA) fault and performance management software for all of their Mitel deployments. MPA monitors the performance and availability of Mitel systems around the clock, delivering an alert in real-time if a problem is detected. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) also provides single-click secure remote access to devices on the customer’s network, and active testing tools for problem resolution.

Results

Since MPA is specifically designed for Mitel systems, it gives us a great depth of visibility into Angels’ network”, said Stefan Bagiensky, Chief Technology Officer for Arden Telecom. “We can access their network easily using MPA, and isolate the source of a problem quickly. A developing voice quality problem can often be caught before it can impact users”.
Proactively preventing downtime for their phone systems is important to Angels. At Halloween, it is not uncommon to see customers lined up around the block at their Angels Fancy Dress retail location in London’s theatre district. “While reliable communications is important to us year-round, at Halloween it becomes critical”, said Jeremy Angel of Angels Costumes. “The store spans five floors, and with high call volume coupled with the need for fast communication within departments, customer service depends on reliable voice services. MPA gives us confidence that our network will perform reliably even under high volume conditions.”

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