Videoconferencing killer heels

Jimmy Choo was launched just over a decade ago in 1996. In April 2001, Equinox Luxury Holdings bought out the original founder, bespoke shoe-maker Jimmy Choo, and began a significant expansion programme with co-founder Tamara Mellon at the helm. Within three years the company opened 26 new stores, taking the total to 30, and introduced handbags and small leather goods collections.
In February 2007, Jimmy Choo once again made the headlines when acquired by TowerBrook, a deal which valued the company at £185 million. When global IT & infrastructure manager, Michael Brown, joined in 2005, Jimmy Choo already had a videoconferencing facility between New York and London. However, it ran over an assembly of unstable, multi-supplier, communications links. Because serious difficulties in initiating a video call were common, the video conferencing system was sat idle most of the time with a utilisation rate of less than one-hour per week.

Brown also had other challenges to deal with. ‘There was an urgent need to rationalise the disparate systems and network and establish an IT and communications strategy to underpin the businesses growth.’
Brown chose vc-net, a company specialising in videoconferencing, collaboration services, telephony and MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) networks via their dedicated global network.
‘Videoconferencing was the initial reason we called in vc-net,’ commented Brown, ‘We had very large travelling expenses yet inherently believed that videoconferencing should be critical to our business. However, our experience of ISDN was marred by poor quality and high costs. On top of that, we were using VPN tunnels over the internet, resulting in poor IP quality.’ vc-net recommended that Jimmy Choo implement a high-performance MPLS network for videoconferencing. The advantage of this fixed-fee approach is that the network can carry voice and data without any additional costs.
Brown explains, ‘We now have a fast, reliable, scaleable network that can expand on bandwidth if necessary. We have implemented board room videoconferencing in the five main offices and are now running video over the MPLS between Los Angles, New York, Florence, Milan and London. This saves a lot of time in travelling although, given the nature of our business, we still have a requirement for face-to-face meetings. A fashion business can never totally eliminate business travel.’
The videoconferencing system is HD future proof. In addition, Jimmy Choo’s network is connected to vc-net’s IP multipoint bridging network. This allows for breaking out to ISDN when external suppliers or business partners need to be included in videoconference meetings.