A giant on paper but Thomas Cook is a collection of SMEs
with a critical ICT needs
Thomas Cook as an 11,000-strong corporation is not an SME by any
form of definition. However, if you consider the fact there are 643
Thomas Cook shops across the country then you have a collection of
businesses with an average of 17 people working in them.
Thomas Cook is half way through a process of basing the IT and
communications requirements of these shops over an IP network. The
IP infrastructure is now in place and the challenge is now to put
in place the specific applications that will enable each shop to
change how it does its business.
Thomas Cook IT director Carl Dawson says, “We’re moving [the
network] with applications that shops need in the next financial
year. The shops now have e-mail and internet access, but that
doesn’t transform the way they work. That is going to change when
we deliver to them the sales applications. We’ve just laid down the
platform for them to deliver the business change but not yet done
the change.”
IP is the future for Thomas Cook and one of the next things to
be initiated is a voice strategy for not just the shops but also
the company’s call centres.
"We're a long way down the line of identifying process and
knowing what they will do regarding voice over IP," says
Dawson.