NetworkFlow

Introduction

YO! Sushi’s first restaurant was opened in London’s Soho in 1997 by Simon Woodroffe. Today YO! Sushi has grown close to 50 restaurants worldwide, serving over 3 million customers a year from restaurants across the UK and international locations in Moscow, Dublin, Dubai, Kuwait and Kuala Lumpur.

Ambitious growth hampered by an out of date solution

Tasked with providing the infrastructure to meet the company’s ambitious plans of growing to 100 restaurants by 2010, IT manager Billy Waters had to take decisive and swift action. 

He was looking for a unified IP communications system to replace a legacy PBX phone system and a pseudo leased line over copper – which were close to capacity, out of date, difficult to use and hard to maintain. He was also looking to bring the entire estate together – more effectively linking all of the internal voice requirements for the 40 restaurants which ranged from London to Newcastle, and bring everyone onto a unified IP system that was easier to manage and more up to date.

An outsourced MPLS solution

To meet these needs, NetworkFlow installed a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) IP Virtual Private Network (IP VPN). Compared to the old outdated hub and spoke network, NetworkFlow’s mesh solution now connects all of YO!’s sites and provides ample bandwidth for effective and efficient communication over email, surfing the Internet and by phone.

The MPLS network allows YO! Sushi to transmit different types of data and apply a Quality of Service (QoS) management and Traffic Engineering layer. This prioritises the different types of data packets according to the importance of speed of delivery. For example, where users are sending emails and making VoIP phone calls, the VoIP traffic is prioritised over the email traffic to ensure no loss of quality for those making the voice calls.

Rather than outsourcing, YO! now have their mini call centre in-house, operated by fully trained YO! Sushi staff. This has improved customer satisfaction by allowing customers to order online or by phone and deal with staff who are up to speed with the latest menu and can greet customers in a personalised manner.

Huge cost savings and 2 year ROI

Ten years ago, a network such as this would have been unaffordable for a company of this size. But working together with NetworkFlow, GP Network Solutions handled all of the hardware configuration for the telephony, installing Swyx softphones and increasing the software licenses across the estate, thereby reduce the need for multiple BT lines. 

Following a 6 month trial at the head office, the network was quickly rolled out across the estate. As a result, annual costs savings of over £15,000 have been saved on BT lines alone because a restaurant now only requires one single line rather than 5-6. Moreover, complexity has been reduced and management have been given back the control of the system that was previously lacking.

Also, YO! no longer need to outsource their conference calling which in turn has reduced this cost to zero.

IT manager Billy Waters comments: “NetworkFlow’s MPLS solution offers us twice the product for half the price; it truly is excellent value for money. It’s a next generation managed solution at a price we can afford today.  But above all, it means that we’re streamlined and have everything under one roof and we no longer have to deal with multiple suppliers like BT, an ISP, a router company etc. Just cancelling the BT lines for internal calls alone has saved us huge amounts of money, and we’re expecting a payback overall of two years which is excellent.”

Future growth

The network is future proofed and will easily accommodate increased capacity as new stores are added to the growing YO! Sushi empire.