Property Services Provider

The Client

A leading property services provider (SIC Code 68310) operates more than 1200 high street branches nationwide under 75+ trading brands to offer a wide range of property services, including residential sales, conveyancing and planning. The organisation relies on fast, secure and scalable connectivity to power its operations across the UK.

The Challenge

The organisation operated across two major business estates, with a combined network of 1,200+ branches split over two entirely different infrastructures.

One operated approximately 500+ sites on an SD-WAN environment, while the second operated around 700+ sites on MPLS. This dual topology created a fragmented set-up, resulting in multiple VRFs, inconsistent routing paths and duplicated data-centre access points.

As a result, deploying modern applications, enabling SaaS services, enforcing security policies or even implementing simple network changes became complex and time-consuming.

Lack of resiliency in part of the estate meant that roughly 10% of branches experienced outages due to single circuit dependency. With no LTE backup, branches lost connectivity entirely when circuits failed.

At the same time, the majority of routers, LAN switches and WiFi access points across the estate were approaching or beyond end-of-life, raising security concerns and limiting the potential for digital transformation.

Finally, the cost of maintaining two separate networks had become high. The organisation needed a unified approach – one resilient network that would simplify operations, modernise the estate and reduce cost. These converging challenges led the organisation to launch a tender.

Why the organisation went to tender

A formal tender process was initiated for four key reasons:

• A fragmented network topology – The network design had become complex and restrictive. Multiple VRFs, fragmented routing paths and split architectures made the environment clunky and restrictive. The business found rolling out modern SaaS platforms, software or security tools challenging due to the inconsistent infrastructure.
• Lack of resilience – Single-circuit branches, with no LTE backup, meant outages were unavoidable. At least, one in ten sites experienced connectivity issues in a typical period an unacceptable state for a national, customer facing estate.
• Multiple support models – Part of the overall support model relied on outsourced service partners whose support structure created long change windows, slow SLAs and no flexibility. The organisation couldn’t make basic changes, couldn’t adjust the MPLS estate and couldn’t scale effectively. In contrast, the part of organisation’s environment supported by Ampito was far easier to manage, resulting in a disjointed overall model.
• End-of-life technology and escalating cost – A large proportion of network devices were end-of-life, so a refresh was unavoidable. Maintaining separate networks across multiple providers resulted in high costs, with no efficiency.

The Sourcing / RFP Process

The organisation launched a competitive RFP that included the incumbent provider, Ampito being one of those providers. The scope covered both estates, meaning every supplier had to propose a solution that refreshed and unified all 1,252 branches.

The programme needed to be completed by the end of 2025, driven initially by BT’s proposed copper withdrawal dates and positioned as a precursor to a wider End User Computing (EUC) transformation programme. This meant the entire estate had to be migrated within roughly 12 months – a timeline most major providers struggled to commit to.

The RFP was a three-month process concluding in August 2023. It was aggressive, detailed and required rapid iterations from all bidders. The organisation held direct negotiations with technology vendors including HPE, Cisco and Juniper.