The Portugal Telecom Group

Global Service Provider Employees Save 15 Hours a Month with Seamless Communication

The Portugal Telecom Group is fast becoming a global leader in the communications industry. Many of its 8,000 employees travel extensively and work at customer sites to develop innovative solutions. To take advantage of the latest Microsoft® technology, the company installed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Now, users can seamlessly switch among e-mail, instant messaging, voice, and video—using one interface. Contacting colleagues is fast and effective, plus real-time co-worker status views through presence technology prevent unnecessary phone calls and reduce e-mail traffic. The new solution helps employees save at least 15 hours a month and has boosted the company’s overall productivity. With deployment planned for the entire company worldwide, Portugal Telecom expects improved customer service and reduced costs to increase its overall profitability.

Situation

Now we don’t always have to book conferences in advance and supply documentation; we can do it instantly. My guess is that this solution is saving employees at least 15 hours a month.  Alexandre Torrão Information System Manager Portugal Telecom

Established in 1994, the Portugal Telecom Group is its country’s leading telecommunications provider. With 8,000 employees based not only in Portugal but also in South America, Africa, and Asia, the company's global presence is steadily increasing. Headquartered in Lisbon, its diverse business portfolio covers fixed, mobile, multimedia, data, and corporate solutions that cater to more than 30 million customers.

Portugal Telecom credits employee innovation as a key driver of its success. The Information System team regularly deploys solutions that improve the company's operations. Employees use Microsoft® Office Professional 2007 to perform daily tasks—including the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client and its calendar tool to plan and book project meetings with colleagues. They also use Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for messaging and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to work collaboratively by sharing information through a Web portal. In addition, employee workstations run on the Windows Vista® operating system.

Project teams within the company deliver a range of telecommunication solutions both for individual, home-based users and for large corporations. The company's projects often require employees to travel, either domestically or around the world; to attend business meetings; or to work directly at customer sites. Yet time spent traveling can decrease productivity and increase a project’s cost, and company employees need to be accessible during work hours whether they are working in the office or working remotely, to respond to urgent requests from colleagues or to answer customer inquiries.

Because of the mobile nature of the company's workforce, locating and contacting coworkers was sometimes a difficult and slow process for Portugal Telecom employees. A tool that would help employees keep in close contact and informed about one another's whereabouts would improve productivity. The company and its employees wanted to look to the latest technology to help improve corporate communication.

Alexandre Torrão, Information System Manager, Portugal Telecom, says, “Not only do we want to deploy innovative solutions for our customers, but we also want to improve the way we work. Because when employees use the latest technology to communicate with coworkers and clients, projects run more efficiently and lead to greater results. As a communications leader, it’s our job to constantly search for new technologies that will give us the competitive edge, and help us expand further.”

Solution

Enterprise IM gives us the flexibility, whether employees use a PC or a mobile device, to boost productivity and accessibility.  Alexandre Torrão Information System Manager Portugal Telecom

In late 2006, through its involvement with Microsoft TechNet, Portugal Telecom learned about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007—a solution that integrates software-powered voice over IP (VoIP) into existing telephony infrastructures. With Office Communications Server 2007, users can make, receive, and manage voice (phone) calls using Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 running on their computers and multiparty, on-premise conferencing (audio, video, and Web).

Confident that VoIP would complement its existing solutions, the company immediately sought to take advantage of the new software. During the first stage of the pilot program, Torrão visited Microsoft corporate headquarters in Redmond in the United States and viewed the solution in a live environment. He saw how the improved integration possibilities in Office Communications Server 2007 would extend user benefits. “We knew Office Communications Server 2007 could help us communicate more effectively and find the best way to contact a colleague. Because we have a lot of employees who work from customer sites, as well as around the world, this would save us a lot of time,” says Torrão.

In February 2007, the information system team installed Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 for an initial test group of 20 employees who volunteered. “The solution was easy to deploy with the simple steps it included to guide our team. And after we checked that everything was working correctly within the test group, we quickly rolled it out to 500 colleagues situated throughout Portugal. When the final version of Office Communications Server 2007 is released, we won’t waste any time deploying it to the entire company,” explains Torrão.

The company planned to use the new solution to streamline communication for users so that they can find and communicate with the right person, instantaneously when they are on IM. The relevant features were:

• Presence awareness, which displays the real-time status of workers. This status is based on each employee’s calendar information, activity status, and user preference. Presence information can be shown to all colleagues and to family and friends.
• Software-powered VoIP, which makes it possible for employees to communicate over an IP network. Employees can integrate voice communications with e-mail messages, calendaring, instant messaging (IM), and Web conferencing.
• Web conferencing, which provides a virtual meeting experience that integrates data, content, video, voice, media, and text to give employees real-time communication and collaboration tools.
• Enterprise IM, which provides the greater level of security, manageability, and reliability with instant messaging that is required for enterprise communications.

Benefits

Torrão and his 500 colleagues are already experiencing benefits from the initial rollout of Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007. Employees who use presence awareness can arrange meetings and respond to information faster, and have access to information that indicates how best to contact their colleagues. Enterprise IM supports communication with colleagues and customers in real time without risking network security. As a result, Portugal Telecom expects many more business benefits when the final version is live throughout the entire company.

If a quick answer is the only thing needed, presence information tells us the best way to send our request. For instance, a colleague may be on a call but yet is still able to respond to an instant message.  Alexandre Torrão Information System Manager Portugal Telecom

Employees Save 15 Hours a Month with New Tools

Torrão uses Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 daily. The benefits were evident when his team had an issue with an IT application. During an initial phone call to a colleague, he was able to add three more personnel skilled in the particular area of concern into what became a conference call. All five employees were in different locations but were viewing the same screenshot at the same time. They were able to resolve the issue that same day.

Torrão explains, “When you try to book an in-person meeting in the traditional sense, you follow specific processes to organize it. These aren’t always efficient for the end user. We have made a huge difference with Office Communications Server 2007. Our people are working with a familiar Microsoft user interface. Now we don’t always have to book conferences in advance and supply documentation, we can do it instantly. My guess is that this solution is saving employees at least 15 hours a month.”

Presence Information Improves Communication

The initial rollout is already highlighting how employees can use Office Communications Server 2007 to work more efficiently. Within a single interface, employees can choose the most suitable way to contact others by using presence awareness. They can move seamlessly from a document to a contact list to a phone call, IM, or video conference.

Torrão says, “The presence-awareness feature is a major benefit. All a user needs to do is to highlight a colleague's name to find out where that colleague is and what they’re doing. This cuts the time spent tracking someone down on the telephone and leaving messages when it’s an urgent request. If a quick answer is the only thing needed, presence information tells us the best way to send our request. For instance, a colleague may be on a call but yet is still able to respond to an instant message.”

Instant Messaging Reduces E-Mail Traffic

Employees can now communicate in real time by using the enterprise IM feature. The more widespread this method becomes, the less e-mail traffic there will be. A fast, online conversation is an easier alternative to a trail of e-mail messages. What’s more, with fewer e-mail messages, employees can spend less time managing e-mails and are less likely to fill their mailboxes and require additional storage capacity.

Torrão comments: “We have employees spread across offices throughout the world. Often there are issues that concern different departments in different locations. Enterprise IM gives us the flexibility, whether employees use a PC or a mobile device, to boost productivity and accessibility.”

New Communication Techniques to Create Greater Profitability

Before this project, Portugal Telecom was aware of the rapid changes in communication technology. Employees had tried IM and video conferencing for work, and were asking for more widespread availability of these technologies. The information system team saw that with a unified communications network, there could actually be less need for employees to travel, thanks to video conferencing and extensive use of IM, leading to a massive reduction in expenses.

Torrão explains, “People are increasingly becoming used to messaging with a variety of new techniques. Soon, more of our employees will use videoconferencing, and this will decrease the need to travel to company meetings. By accessing videoconferencing through computers that have Web cameras or headsets installed, users can continue to work with e-mail messages and IM, without having to travel to another location. They can use this time to complete more business-oriented tasks or, for those who travel outside office hours, improve their work/life balance.

“After the final version is deployed to our 8,000 users, we expect levels of customer service to grow, and costs to go down, increasing our overall profitability. We believe that the improvements available by using Office Communications Server 2007 are applicable to any type of business that uses computers, anywhere in the world.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about The Portugal Telecom Group products and services, call 00 351 21 501 9119 or visit the Web site at: 
www.telecom.pt  

Microsoft Office System

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For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office  

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Document published September 2007