01 October 2017

Hesco manufactures, designs and implements defence barriers in several countries around the world. The company is renowned for its rapidly deployable Concertainer system (pictured) that is used for both flood control and military fortifications.

Operating with around 300 employees at facilities in the UK and US, Hesco has customers in Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East. Keeping in contact with them, and making sure staff can also stay in touch with each other, is vital to the company’s international operations. Having a communications solution that supports this is therefore crucial. 

“We work on a very responsive basis,” says supply chain manager Adam Robinson. “If our customers need something urgently, we need to be able to respond to them quickly.” However, he adds that the communications network the company was using lacked the reliability staff needed to respond to customers in the way they wanted. As a result, Hesco sought a reliable communications solution to provide a seamless service whether employees were based in the US offices or on location. 

The company also needed a data package with the ability to accurately predict the cost of usage when abroad. It says travelling to different countries that have different network providers was tough, and that it needed to buy data bundles in every location. The lack of a consolidated solution was not only frustrating but also resulted in mounting costs.

Hesco turned to Vodafone to provide a continuous and reliable service, and one that gave them the flexibility and adaptability they needed. Hesco chose the operator’s Worry-free Roaming to meet its needs across the board. 

Robinson says the move to Vodafone was “seamless”. He says Hesco now knows what its mobile costs will be regardless of where its teams are in the world. “We can take our standard package abroad and use our minutes and data for a small daily fee. It allows our teams to travel without the worry and stress of a huge bill when they return.”

He adds that the company no longer has to buy data every time it goes somewhere, and staff are not worrying about not getting a signal or service.

Another benefit of using Worry-free Roaming with Vodafone has been the increase in staff productivity. “Staff can now connect their laptops to their phones and use their data packages to access emails and the internet,” says Robinson. “This means they don’t need to go into the office or a suitable location with Wi-Fi.”