Liwaco Group


Liwaco Group, a spin off from its parent Swiss company, is an ISO9001 certified sports apparel manufacturer, head-quartered in Hong Kong with regional offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, employing over 2000 people.

Liwaco has deployed Deltapath’s frSIP PBX at the above locations since 2005.  Prior to that, Liwaco used a variety of legacy PBXs at these sites, with some having been in use for over 15 years.  The major reason for a complete replacement was that the company had outgrown its’ old telephone systems, in addition, maintenance was difficult and costly due to the vintage nature of most of the equipment.

Now by using Deltapath’s frSIP® PBX, every employee has a unique extension that allows for a universal dialing plan.  Employees can simply pick up the phone and dial a 3 digit extension no matter where they are, absolutely free of charge with no complicated prefixes and dialing procedures involved.  “Now everyone in the group is a free and easy call away.  You can’t put a value figure on the convenience and flexibility which that offers us.”  Robert Wood, Regional IT Manager of Liwaco Group described.

By linking all offices with voice over IP, the group saves a large proportion of its’ long distance calling costs.  Adopting frSIP® PBX has also helped the group to save 50% in maintenance costs compared with its’ previous legacy PBXes.

Besides the typical cost savings of an IP-PBX, one major cost benefit of deploying frSIP® PBX is the ability to expand freely without financial burden.  “Most PBX vendors including those offering IP-PBX require a Right To Use (RTU) license for every phone you plug into the system.  However, there is no RTU or user limit with frSIP® PBX.  We simply pay a flat fee per box and we can add as many users as we like without any additional cost.”  Wood explained.  When Liwaco first deployed frSIP® PBXes, the group operated 150 extensions world-wide.  This figure has tripled in the space of just two years, with savings on licensing and convenience of expansion being significant factors. 

One of the most heavily utilized features at Liwaco is roaming. Users who are constantly on the move are assigned with a soft phone on their laptops, allowing them to connect back to frSIP® PBX at the home base from anywhere in the world. In addition, by ringing the user’s extension, frSIP® can ring the desk phone, soft phone, cell phone, and any other numbers in any branches at the same time, allowing the roaming user to answer calls wherever he/she is. If the user is out of reach from the Internet, he/she can dial in with their mobile into frSIP®’s Remote Dial-in module and make calls as if he/she is in the office.

Finally, nothing beats the importance of reporting and automated call routing when it comes to managing the phone systems for an organization with 2000 employees. The Call Accounting module allows Liwaco to conduct least cost routing, automatically select the cheapest IDD carrier whenever a user makes a long distance calls and to prompt for PIN whenever a toll call is made. The accounting and IT staff can easily monitor usage and generate reports to reconcile with carriers’ statements and bill individual departments for usage.

For more information about Liwaco Group, please visit www.liwaco.com.hk