Strencom enables worldwide animation collaboration for Brown Bag Films

Strencom, the managed connectivity and cloud computing company, has provided a combined Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and managed connectivity solution to Brown Bag Films. This is enabling the Oscar nominated and Emmy award winning studio to successfully collaborate with its entertainment customers and partners worldwide. The new three year contract is valued at €300,000.

Brown Bag Films produces animation series such as Henry Hugglemonster, Peter Rabbit, Octonauts and Doc McStuffins which are viewed by tens of millions of children around the world.

Strencom’s UCaaS solution is based on a hosted Microsoft Lync platform. Using this platform, Brown Bag Films now has a virtual collaboration space, connecting its offices in Dublin with its partners in global animation studios. The technology allows Brown Bag Films to switch seamlessly between audio and video conferencing, instant messaging, and desktop and application sharing, to facilitate animation production across multiple geographies.

The implementation of Stencom’s UCaaS solution has enabled Brown Bag Films to save 40% over traditional PSTN or ISDN phone lines and retire a PBX system which was no longer fit for purpose.

Cathal Gaffney, CEO of Brown Bag Films said, “When we implemented Strencom we immediately began to see creative and productivity gains that we hadn’t initially planned. It has immensely improved internal communications helping to facilitate our scaling in Ireland and internationally.”

Some of the creative benefits include the use of Microsoft Lync by art directors to run internal ‘lunch & learn’ sessions. Using the screen sharing facilities of the system, the art directors are running these lunchtime sessions to demonstrate innovative new animation techniques to other members of the team. This is having a very positive impact across the company.

All communications on the hosted Microsoft Lync system are securely encrypted from end-to-end over the Strencom managed fibre network. This network is also providing the speeds, bandwidth and reliability needed by a business such as Brown Bag Films, which must send large animation files to its clients around the globe.

Louise Nicholls, IT Manager with Brown Bag Films commented, “The ability of the combined offering from Strencom to provide quality of service for collaboration and telephony was a vital deciding factor. People quickly lose confidence in technology if it isn’t consistent and Strencom has delivered reliability and scalability.

“In addition, the implementation of the hosted Microsoft Lync platform was fast and simple as we began with a ‘proof of concept’ which Strencom had up and running within days. This ultimately led to a seamless full deployment of the technology with no disruption to our day-to-day business. We now have multiple technologies in a single application without any need for us to invest in large on-premise hardware.”

Tim Murphy, CEO, Strencom said, “Brown Bag Films is one of the world’s most original and creative animation studios. It has a tradition of leveraging advanced technologies to produce great films and TV shows. We are delighted that our integrated UCaaS and managed connectivity platform is helping them with collaboration among colleagues, customers and partners worldwide.”