Carr-Gomm

Carr-Gomm is a national charity that provides high quality housing, care and support to over 4,000 disadvantaged people each year. The charity provides support to a wide range of people including those with mental ill-health or learning disabilities, homeless people and vulnerable families. Carr-Gomm places individuals at the centre of planning and decision-making; helping clients to achieve their goals and live independently.

Established in 1965 by the late Richard Carr-Gomm OBE at a house in Bermondsey, South London, Carr-Gomm has since expanded to 327 properties across the United Kingdom. Through Carr-Gomm’s relationship with Network Resource Group (NRG) this expansion has been managed to allow seamless connectivity between an ever-expanding number of schemes and services throughout England.

Sri Muthukumaru, Carr-Gomm’s Head of Information Technology, oversaw the organisation’s transition from a traditional MPLS service to NRG’s proprietary LANKonnect solution. But there was more to Carr-Gomm’s decision than cost savings and a bespoke, tailored service; as Sri puts it, “We look for people who understand our business”.

“We work in over 70 local authorities and have over 230 schemes supporting 4,000 clients – half of whom live in accommodation owned by Carr-Gomm, the other half we support in their own homes.” As Sri explains, “Carr-Gomm is geographically spread, three or four years ago we didn’t have an IT connection for every office which made communicating and sharing information across the organisation difficult. Now, however all of our services can access ICT facilities giving staff means to communicate via email and access up-to-date information and via the intranet, and use finance and HR systems. Thus improving internal communications, improved efficiencies in administration and a substantial cost savings”.

Having previously worked with a large MPLS provider, Carr-Gomm was looking elsewhere when it discovered LANKonnect. “We look for people who we can work with in partnership. When we went through the tender process, NRG got the contract”. However, NRG didn’t impress simply with their technology, as Sri elaborates: “The basis is it’s not decided technically – NRG understood our business and they work with other organisations like us. Our operations team were interested by the demonstrations done by NRG. Whatever we wanted they gave us”.

As Carr-Gomm’s partnership with NRG has developed, Sri has come to see the benefits of utilising the LANKonnect solution. “The LANKonnect solution is the whole package; it’s good. Yes, it’s cost effective and yes, it gives us what we want. It’s a balance between business and IT”. The depth of the LANKonnect solution is one of its great strengths: “We value the other services that come with the LANKonnect solution. With other providers you get what you sign for and that’s it; you can’t talk about technical things. We don’t want to be a small fish in a big pond”.

As new sites are rolled out LANKonnect’s flexibility comes to the fore, allowing Carr-Gomm to provide a constant service that is not restrained by complex, multi-faceted installation designs: “The main thing was the flexibility, because you can install an office tomorrow and NRG can manage this”. As Sri concludes, “your service is constant... I can rely on your organisation to show support and I am confident in you and your approach; I get what I want!”

“Network Recourse Group respect us, we respect them. We feel the relationship is always stable”.