KANE VETERINARY SUPPLIES PLANS FOR BUSINESS
GROWTH WITH FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY

COMPANY
Kane Veterinary Supplies Ltd. is a growing Canadian wholesale supplier of veterinary, large animal and pet products.

CHALLENGE
The company's decade-old phone system was unreliable, irreparable and hindering the effectiveness of its sales force.

SOLUTION
Allstream helped Kane Veterinary Supplies implement a reliable telephony system through the Allstream Shield that provided a system replacement guarantee without the long-term contract lockin associated with traditional leases.

OUTCOMES

Eliminated downtime with a new phone system

Implemented advanced reporting tools to allow proactive management and planning

Maintained ability to update system in future without worry of financial penalties

Kane Veterinary Supplies faced a serious challenge from its decade-old phone system when components were failing with increasing frequency which interfered with productivity and the customer experience. Worse, because the system was no longer supported by the original vendor, Kane Veterinary could not obtain replacement parts - so when things went down, Kane's Information Services staff were forced to discard the old equipment and had to make do with what was left. The sales force was increasingly compromised in its efforts to reach out to customers.

To accommodate its growing needs as well as to avoid the sticker shock of a major capital investment, the company decided on the Allstream Shield to pay for its telephony solution.

“For our new system, we wanted flexibility if our growth rate increased and our needs changed. We needed a reliable phone system which could be upgraded, maintained or replaced if our business needs called for that. We didn't want to be locked in”, says Information Services Manager Courtney Borle. Kane Veterinary preferred monthly payments over a large up-front capital investment, but wanted to avoid restrictive terms of a traditional lease. “The Allstream Shield was the only program that allowed us to address these two critical needs,” she adds. After carefully researching the market, Kane Veterinary selected Allstream because in addition to the best technical solution it allowed the company to:

• Avoid contract lock-in and retain ability to grow and evolve the system to meet changing business needs
• Realize tax advantages and avoid asset depreciation costs
• Conserve capital and to invest in business growth
• Match your pace of investment to organizational growth and evolution

BUSINESS OUTCOMES

Kane Veterinary is already realizing tangible benefits from its new phone system, including:

• Reduced outage frequency and improved availability to sales force and customers
• Faster turnaround time when problems are reported
• Reduced staff overhead due to enhanced reporting tools that simplify proactive system management
• More predictable budget management due to monthly payment options