29 July 2010, Weybridge, UK: STA Travel, the world’s largest travel company for students and young people, has awarded Azzurri Communications, the leading telecoms managed service provider, a five year contract to connect, manage and support a global wide area network. The WAN links STA’s 450 retail outlets, call centres and business partners throughout the world.

Andy Mills, Chief Information Officer, STA Travel said: “We’ve had a close relationship with Azzurri for a number of years and they have consistently provided us with great service and competitive pricing. We reviewed the market and looked at a number of WAN suppliers at the beginning of this year. After a competitive tender, we chose to re-award the contract to Azzurri.”

The primary purpose of the WAN is to allow STA Travel to run a centralised technology strategy: all STA Travel’s business applications such as Point of Sale and financial management software is hosted in the UK and rolled out globally over the network Azzurri provides.

STA Travel’s 450 outlets are located across 85 countries. They all require instant access to huge amounts of information: flight schedules, prices and seat availability from dozens of carriers, as well as data on domestic travel, accommodation, weather conditions, insurance and visa information. A robust, flexible and scaleable global network to underpin this information flow is therefore vital to STA Travel’s business success.

Andy Mills outlines why he entrusts a single supplier to connect STA Travel’s global infrastructure: “The key benefit we gain from working with a managed telecoms service provider like Azzurri is clarity of responsibility. They are responsible for managing multiple suppliers and delivering on the SLAs and they have always dealt with any challenges quickly and efficiently. There is also a very sound relationship operationally, with technology teams and engineers from both sides collaborating effectively.”

As a result of the partnership STA Travel also gains the benefit of access to new technologies and service terms within the terms of the contract. Mills adds: “We’ve just completed an upgrade to our core network with a new internet superstructure and enhanced firewalls. If we were tied to a global carrier contract we wouldn’t have this level of flexibility.”