AmicusHorizon calls on Azzurri

VAR wins five-year deal to supply housing association with new telecoms service

Azzurri has won a five-year, £3.5m deal to refresh the telecoms services for South-East based housing association AmicusHorizon.

The organisation, which manages more than 28,000 homes via 15 primary offices and a further 70 remote single-person offices, needed a new provider after its existing WAN contract came to an end.

Azzurri beat competition from 16 other companies across Europe to win the deal, based on value for money, best solutions to offer and promise of best quality of service. The deal will also help the housing association save about £1.5m during the term of the contract.

Martin Crouch, IT services manager at AmicusHorizon, said: “We were very impressed with Azzurri’s approach throughout the tender process. Azzurri won more parts of the tender than any other supplier because of the professional and consultative approach of its team. The amount of information they provided for each of their solutions was refreshingly detailed and succinct. Often the solutions they proposed in the initial consultations were already spot on – little was changed in the subsequent discussions. This showed us they really understood the needs of our organisation.

“While cost savings were important to us, they were not the primary driver of the project. Overall we wanted to get as much value as we could, this meant value in service, the quality of the solution, and the attention to detail. These factors were far more important to us than the price. Azzurri won on all fronts, they delivered on quality, and brought significant cost savings.”

Rufus Grig, CTO at Azzurri, added: “AmicusHorizon has proven that Azzurri’s wealth of expertise and excellence is not diluted by the breadth of its portfolio. Delivering both exceptional quality of service and value for money across WAN, internet, fixed-line telephony and videoconferencing is no small achievement. We are proud to be working with AmicusHorizon on such a broad range of their telecommunications needs.”