Getting Vertical

Keeping It Fresh: Pace Picks Up Savings with MegaPath Services

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines  |  March 01, 2011

This article originally appeared in the March 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.

Preservation is important, whether you’re talking about maintaining the freshness of fruits and vegetables, or controlling costs to ensure your business’s longevity. In the case of Pace International, a hosted voice solution from MegaPath (News - Alert) helps it address all of the above.

Pace develops and sells products that protect and preserve fruits and vegetables from harvest time through shipping and delivery. But, like the produce it helps to maintain, the Seattle-based company has more than one plant (two, actually, one in California and one in Washington) and needs the right conditions to help it survive and thrive.

When Pace sought out a more cost-effective and efficient way to enable communications among its 100 employees – which work out of the two plants, 11 warehouses and eight international offices – it did some digging around to see what options were available. Ultimately, the company picked a solution from MegaPath.

The MegaPath (formerly Speakeasy (News - Alert), which MegaPath recently purchased) hosted voice solution lowered Pace’s growing long-distance telephone costs, a critical requirement for this customer. Pace also estimates that it saves 10 to 20 percent of IT time each month by not having to maintain the old phone system. (MegaPath provides Pace with a web portal to allow for quick and simple administration of password management and moves, adds and changes. Tasks that used to take 30 minutes now takes five, according to the companies.) In all, Pace estimates that it is saving $65,000 annually in long-distance costs, conference calling, and phone system connectivity.

What’s more, Pace employees can make conference calls between the company’s sites under an unlimited calling plan. The service also allows for four-digit dialing between the sites, find me/follow me functionality, auto attendant for automated call routing, and is integrated with Outlook.

“Our [new] system offers tremendous versatility and features over our old phone system and provides centralized visibility for our customers,” says Jon Wells, director of IT of Pace International. “We’ll save thousands a year in long-distance, and since the service is hosted, we’ll eliminate all the headaches associated with maintaining phone system hardware in-house. When you combine all these benefits, switching to VoIP rapidly becomes a no-brainer.”




Edited by Stefania Viscusi