About Banijay UK

Banijay UK Productions is the UK arm of Banijay Group, one of the world's largest independent content producers and distributors. With 130 creative companies spanning 25 territories, the group produces 16,000 hours of content and manages 3,000 live events globally every year. In the UK, Banijay operates across nine sites including London, Manchester, and Glasgow, with a workforce that combines permanent staff and a constantly rotating pool of production freelancers.

For Mark Cotterel and the Banijay UK IT team, ensuring people remain connected and supported is a critical part of maintaining the pace and efficiency required across the organisation.

Supporting a Growing Organisation

As Banijay continued to evolve across multiple sites and teams, there was an opportunity to bring greater simplicity and consistency to the way communications and support were managed across the business.
 
Existing arrangements had developed naturally around operational requirements, but as the organisation grew, managing multiple suppliers, contracts and support channels created increasing complexity for the IT team. Communications-related support requests were also placing greater demand on the service desk, drawing time and resource away from wider priorities.
 
Mark and his team were looking for an approach that could simplify day-to-day management, reduce pressure on internal teams and create a model that could support the organisation long term.

"Our service desk was being hit constantly with first-line support issues. It was taking up a disproportionate amount of the team's time on calls and tickets that frankly should never have landed with us."

Delivering the Project

Following a review of the available options, Banijay selected GTN as its managed communications partner. The decision was driven by more than the technology alone: GTN's proactive commercial approach, transparent recommendations and confidence in the team delivering the project gave Banijay assurance they had found a partner capable of supporting both the implementation and the business long after go-live.

As part of that process, Kirsty Dunne, GTN's CEO, personally reviewed Banijay's set-up, identifying opportunities to simplify the communications environment and deliver significant commercial efficiencies, with conversations going beyond a straightforward technology swap to focus on a model that would remain manageable and scalable as the business grew

The project brought together communications solutions across all nine UK sites into a single managed environment. This included migrating more than 350 users onto a unified platform, simplifying service delivery through one support structure and providing the customer with a single point of contact throughout the organisation.

For Banijay, one of the biggest advantages was the managed service approach: communications-related issues were no longer absorbed internally, as GTN took ownership of ongoing support and ticket management, reducing pressure on the IT team and freeing up internal resources to focus elsewhere.

"What completely changed things was that the platform through GTN comes with a fully managed service. Any ticket, any issue, our team now directs it straight to GTN. It is off our plate. That alone transformed what my team could focus on."

Mark Cotterel, Banijay UK Productions

Given the nature of Banijay's business, maintaining continuity throughout deployment was essential. Rolling out a communications project across nine locations supporting live productions and events required careful planning and close coordination.

To ensure a successful deployment, GTN provided an on-site presence at every location during each go-live. Working closely with Banijay teams, engineers delivered hands-on support, proactively resolved issues, and helped ensure a smooth, low-disruption transition to the new communications platform.

"The deployment was one of the smoothest I have been part of. GTN were on site at every location, the project was efficiently run, and we went live across all nine sites without any meaningful disruption. For a business like ours, live productions, events and fast-moving environments, that really matters.”

Mark Cotterel, Banijay UK Productions

The Results

Five months after deployment, the benefits of the new communications platform are being realised across both the IT team and the wider business.
 
The move to a single managed communications environment has simplified what was previously a more complex support structure, giving Banijay one relationship, one route for support and a more streamlined way of managing communications across the business.
 
For Mark's team, the reduction in day-to-day communications management has freed up valuable service desk resource. Time previously spent resolving telephony and support issues can now be redirected towards higher-value IT initiatives and strategic priorities.
 
Alongside operational improvements, the project has also delivered significant financial benefits. Banijay is achieving annual savings in the region of £100,000 while maintaining a stable and reliable communications environment across all nine locations.
 
The new platform has operated reliably across all nine sites since go-live, with no significant downtime and no missed-call incidents during the cutover period.

Looking Ahead

With the UK deployment delivering results, attention is beginning to turn to what the same model could achieve across the broader Banijay Group. With 130 creative companies operating across 25 territories, the opportunity for communications consolidation at a group level is significant.

"If any of the other Banijay territories came to me and asked whether they should look at GTN, I would not hesitate. The savings, the managed service and the way the deployment was handled all made a real difference."

Mark Cotterel, Banijay UK Productions