Zen Internet, the pioneering ISP company that provides data, voice and hosting services to hundreds of UK businesses has Elevated its billing to the cloud thanks to a partnership with Strategic Imperatives.

The multi award-winning Zen which boasts more than 90,000 customers always partners with like-minded organisations which understand the value of technical innovation and excellent customer service, making Strategic Imperatives’ Elevate the natural choice for its future-facing billing requirements.

Elevate is SI’s transformational approach to the channel’s demand for a new solution to billing. Casting off obsolete technologies, outdated practices and inefficient processes, Elevate leverages Amazon’s AWS to keep the infrastructure highly scalable and cloud-based. This affords Elevate remarkable elastic capability, allowing it to work in real time; responding instantly to changes in customer and pricing data – immediately recalculating – and giving Zen constant oversight of their business performance with all the data they need at their fingertips.

Zen identified Elevate as the billing system in the market that was uniquely capable of meeting their short term tactical needs as well as their long term strategic plans. They were particularly impressed with the approach and core principles SI had adopted during the development of Elevate, and they shared SI’s enthusiasm for cloud-based SaaS, and the advantages it offers their business.

Commenting on the decision, Chris Platt, Head of Systems, Zen Internet said: “From a technology perspective Elevate stands head and shoulders above its competitors, but it’s the business benefits the implementation provides that really make a difference in our day to day activity.”

SI are confident that no other billing solution can provide the advantages offered by Elevate which they believe are critical for Communication Provider (CP) businesses to thrive and expand. Platt agrees: “Elevate’s impact on Zen was immediate. Its SaaS nature meant that a pre-configured version of the service was up and running very quickly and we were able to process the first live bill run within days. We performed penetration and vulnerability testing on Elevate and it passed with flying colours. Additionally, the system is so intuitive and user-friendly we were able to roll it out to staff with minimal training.”

SI Head of Business Development Tim Sayer said: “We designed Elevate around our clients’ need for a completely fresh approach to billing. We used our experience of turning complex requirements into intuitive solutions and designed a system from the ground up. Now, the moment it’s needed, whenever they need it, the power and capability enjoyed by the world’s largest enterprises is theirs.

“Working with Zen has revealed Elevate’s true capacity and scalability. Billing systems are usually slow and cumbersome especially when it comes to bill runs or tariff changes but Elevate responds instantaneously to Zen’s demands. Plus, our two-factor authentication and finance industry level encryption ensures total security for them and their customers. Zen can now plot their commercial roadmap using Elevate’s time-based capability enabling them to plan, deploy and test future propositions in real time. We think it’s an exceptional solution fit for a constantly changing market.”

Platt is delighted with the new SaaS system: “Billing is a strategic service which our business depends upon. In the past twenty years Zen has grown from a small-scale start-up to a highly responsive CP with more than 400 staff and we have no plans to stop there. Strategic Imperatives’ approach and industry experience makes them the ideal billing partner for us. Their attention to detail is obvious and Elevate’s rich features combined with exceptional usability and scalability gives us the confidence the system will grow and adapt to the demands of the market as we do. Zen prides itself on empowering customers to reach their full business potential, and that’s exactly what SI and Elevate do for us.”
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About Strategic Imperatives

Strategic Imperatives is the leading provider of virtual network, BSS and OSS solutions to the channel.

Strategic Imperatives enables its clients to gain cost savings, decrease their time to market and quickly respond to new opportunities in today’s rapidly changing environment. Using its Elevate Platform, Strategic Imperatives works with its clients to rapidly deliver carrier grade convergent OSS/BSS solutions, value added services, local loop unbundling and wholesale line rental integration.

For more information about Strategic Imperatives please contact Tim Sayer on 0845 680 0731 or email [email protected].

About Zen Internet

Zen Internet is one of the UK’s leading independent Internet Service Providers (ISP). Having grown from a pioneering ISP 20 years ago, today Zen is a multi-award-winning company which provides a full range of data, voice and cloud services to business and residential customers across the UK.