4-page Case Study - Posted 10/4/2007
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IT Solution Provider Unifies Communications, Cuts Costs with New Software
Having many locations and highly mobile employees has contributed to the success of BT INS, which provides IT consulting and software solutions to large organizations. A dispersed work force can present challenges, however, such as delayed communications and problems for employees who need to contact colleagues quickly to resolve issues. BT INS decided to enhance its communications infrastructure by deploying Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007. With the new solution, users have access to easy-to-use voice capabilities, presence awareness, and instant messaging and conferencing from their PCs. Employees are more efficient, because they can quickly locate and determine the availability of colleagues. The company expects to reduce calling-card costs by at least 50 percent and audio-conference hosting costs by 30 percent, and to significantly cut its cell phone bills.
Situation
BT INS is a global provider of IT consulting and software solutions. The company’s structured methodologies, strategic alliances, and expertise across numerous industries helps large organizations achieve strategic business goals. BT INS has approximately 1,000 employees and 38 offices, including its main offices in Santa Clara, California, and Dallas, Texas. The company is the U.S.-based professional services arm of the British telecommunications giant BT, which acquired Santa Clara–based International Network Services (INS) in early 2007.
As a rapidly growing technology provider—and now, as part of a global corporation—BT INS makes it a priority to facilitate communication and collaboration and to keep the costs and resources associated with its communica-tions infrastructure as lean as possible. This is not always easy; about 80 percent of the BT INS work force consists of sales personnel, consultants, and other “road warriors” who spend much or most of their time away from their desks. In some instances, employees do not spend any time at all in an office, working instead from their homes or client sites.
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By using Office Communications Server 2007, we expect to cut our calling-card costs by 50 percent in the first six months and our audio conference bridge costs by at least 30 percent.  |
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Scott Scharf
Program Manager for Unified Communications & Collaboration
Emerging Technologies Office
BT INS |
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The systems that employees used to communicate were dispersed and often poorly connected. The company has many different makes and models of Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems at its two main offices and dispersed branch offices, making it difficult or impossible to seamlessly route calls from one office to another when employees from different locations needed to collaborate. There was no integrated voice-mail solution available, so employees relied heavily on their own cell phones. That, however, could make it difficult to find people quickly if a client had a question or there was an urgent problem that needed to be resolved.
“We did not have a consolidated telephony solution across our enterprise, and there was a lot of complexity that affected the way we did business,” says Scott Scharf, Program Manager for Unified Communications & Collaboration in the Emerging Technologies Office of BT INS. “Our systems presented some real challenges, especially because our clients are looking to us to be on top of the technology used to facilitate business operations. We have a broad range of solutions for our customers and a lot of information to provide. But when our employees in the field cannot find answers quickly, we don’t look very coordinated.”
Solution
The IT department and executives at BT INS, which is a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, decided to improve the company’s communications infrastructure by deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 along with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 unified communications client software for desktop PCs and Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile client software for mobile devices.
The company is also testing a variety of Internet protocol (IP)–based devices that work with Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007, including the Microsoft RoundTable™ conferencing and collaboration device; the Polycom CX100 speakerphone, which plugs into the USB port of a desktop or portable PC; and the Jabra GN9350 wireless and GN2000 USB headsets.
BT INS conducted a phased rollout of Office Communications Server 2007 and the related technologies. By June 2007, about 300 users in a pilot program had access to the Office Communications Server 2007 features, including software-powered voice over IP (VoIP), instant messaging, and enhanced presence. The presence feature shows the availability and contact preferences of people on a network from within commonly used software applications such as the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client and other programs in the 2007 Microsoft Office suites. BT INS rolled out Office Communications Server 2007 to 850 of its employees in September 2007.
“The deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 went seamlessly,” says Scharf. “The voice quality and the consistency of the connections [have] improved with every release.”
BT INS runs Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 for its messaging infrastructure, but plans to deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in December 2007. The company will use Office Communications Server 2007 in conjunction with the unified messaging capabilities of Exchange Server 2007. These include the ability to route calls into voice mail that is delivered to Office Outlook 2007 inboxes, and the ability to listen and respond to e-mail using a telephone.
Benefits
Although it is still early in the deployment process, BT INS has already achieved several important benefits for the business through its use of Office Communications Server 2007. Most notably, the company’s geographically dispersed employees can work more efficiently, because they can locate other people more quickly.
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When I switched to Office Communications Server 2007 voice features, my cell phone usage dropped to about 500 minutes a month. That’s a huge reduction in my cell phone usage that came simply by changing my mode of communication. |
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Scott Scharf
Program Manager for
Unified Communications & Collaboration
Emerging Technologies Office
BT INS |
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The company expects to cut costs dramatically as more internal calls are routed through Office Communications Server 2007 instead of through standard PBX lines and cell phones. Office Communications Server 2007 also provides a foundation for building an infrastructure that supports rich, unified communications and messaging as BT INS begins deployment of Exchange Server 2007.
Improves Employee Efficiency
BT INS employees participating in the early stages of the Office Communications Server 2007 deployment, including sales representatives, engineering consultants, and executives, are already reporting greater efficiencies when they work.
“Office Communications Server 2007 helps eliminate the lag time that comes from leaving voice mails and playing phone tag,” says Scharf. “For example, one of our consultants may be at a customer site with his laptop and need to have a question answered quickly by an engineer. Instead of picking up a cell phone, calling someone else’s cell phone, and not knowing whether or not he’ll get through to that person, the presence technology in Office Communica-tions Server 2007 immediately lets him know if someone is available and the best method for getting in touch with him or her.”
The integration of the presence technology with Office Outlook 2007 in particular is critical, Scharf says, because people spend so much of their working day using that program. “The integration of Office Communications Server 2007 presence with Outlook 2007 and other Microsoft programs is huge―it is fundamental to streamlining the way our employees work,” he says. “Now when people have a question for another team member—even someone in a different state—they just look at that person’s presence icon to see if he or she is there. If so, they click on the button and do a quick instant message session. This can be done from their laptop or using their mobile device running Office Communicator Mobile.
“Sometimes conversations can become too complex for an IM session, so the participants can instantly turn it into an Office Communicator 2007 call with the click of another button, or even escalate it into a [Microsoft Office] Live Meeting collaboration session,” Scharf continues. “Now, instead of waiting hours or longer for a reply, people can get questions answered and issues addressed in just minutes.”
Employees also have greater freedom and flexibility because their voice tools are built right into their PCs. The company allows employees to select the device that they prefer; many have already opted for the Jabra GN2000 USB headset, using it with the Office Communicator 2007 client software to make voice calls directly from their PC.
“The voice quality is excellent,” Scharf says. “I now spend up to four hours a day on calls using the Office Communications Server 2007 voice capability; and to people on the other end of the line, in most cases, it’s as clear as if I am using a standard PBX telephone. I also work in a private space that allows me to use the speakerphone on the Polycom CX100. The audio quality is also excellent, and the compact form of the device makes it easy to slip it into my bag when I travel.”
Reduces Telecommunications Costs
Scharf says he anticipates that BT INS will be able to dramatically reduce its telecommu-nications costs by moving much of the company’s voice communications to the new solution.
“We are still evaluating how Office Communications Server 2007 will affect our costs, but I’m confident that they will be reduced significantly based on my own experience,” he says. “I have a cell phone, and a recent bill delivered a shock—I was averaging 4,000 minutes on a 2,000-minutes-a-month plan. There was a big bill for that. When I switched to Office Communications Server 2007 voice features, my cell phone usage dropped to about 500 minutes a month. That’s a huge reduction in my cell phone usage that came simply by changing my mode of communication.”
Scharf says that with Office Communications Server 2007, the company can operate its own internal conference calls, helping to reduce the external contract costs associated with hosting web conferencing.
“A large portion of our communications costs, particularly for Web conferencing calls, are internally generated, and using Office Communications Server 2007 will allow us to avoid third-party Web conferencing contracts,” he says. “By using Office Communications Server 2007, we expect to cut our calling card costs by 50 percent in the first six months and our audio conference bridge costs by at least 30 percent.”
Provides a Foundation for Enhanced Communications
The deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 is helping BT INS in its goal to implement a more unified communications and messaging infrastructure.
“The unified communications provided by Office Communications Server 2007 will be a perfect complement to the unified messaging provided by Exchange Server 2007,” says Scharf. “Employees will be able to use their Exchange Server mailboxes to receive, listen to, and respond to voice mails, and they will use the presence in Outlook 2007 and other software to quickly locate available colleagues.”
He says the IT department anticipates creating solutions that will incorporate the Office Communications Server 2007 presence technology into BT INS line-of-business knowledge management solutions, making presence ubiquitous, so that people in organizations served by BT INS can benefit from being able to quickly locate and communicate with their peers. And by federating Office Communications Server 2007—that is, by making its functionality available to other organizations—BT INS will be able to streamline communications with customers and partners and within the global BT organization. Scharf says one of the first tasks following his company’s acquisition by BT was federating the U.S. operation with the BT Office Communications Server 2007 environment.
“It took a few weeks because of paperwork and getting approvals from all the necessary people, but once federation was in place, it took just a fraction of the time to integrate the two different IT infrastructures than it would have without Office Communications Server 2007,” Scharf says. “It was so fast and simple to find people and resolve issues quickly. Any organization going through mergers and acquisitions should use this kind of technology. Office Communications Server 2007 eases communications and delivers huge productivity gains by allowing people to get real-time answers to their questions.”
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 BT INS products and services, call (408) 330-2700 or visit the Web site at:
www.bt.ins.com
Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.
For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published September 2007
