4-page Case Study - Posted 11/1/2007

Views: 596

Rate This Evidence:

Windrush Frozen Foods Ltd.

Catering Company Reduces Employee Travel and Lowers Costs with Unified Communications

Windrush Frozen Foods provides catering services to restaurant chains and other businesses in the United Kingdom. Following rapid growth over recent years, Windrush operates from an increasing number of sites, which has changed the way that employees work with each other. To meet the challenges of expansion, Windrush decided to introduce innovative ways of collaborating internally and with customers. To that end, Windrush deployed Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007. With this unified communications solution, employees move seamlessly between voice, e-mail, and IM through a single interface. Employees now work from home more frequently, lowering overhead and reducing travel costs by up to 40 percent. Voice quality also exceeds that of a voice over IP (VoIP) system previously used by Windrush.

Situation

Office Communications Server 2007 will provide a richer, more engaging way of interacting with our customers. It will give us a new way to display our products and help our customers make informed choices.  Robert Arpino Chief Executive Officer Windrush Frozen Foods

As a small but highly successful player in a fast-moving industry, Windrush aims to keep its customers at the forefront of food trends. In addition to sourcing the finest ingredients from around the world for its recipes, the company places an emphasis on forging strong relationships with customers. For example, customers often visit the demo kitchen at Witney to view preparation processes and new products. The customer service team processes product orders for next-day delivery and also offers expert advice on catering strategies.

Robert Arpino, Chief Executive Officer, Windrush Frozen Foods, says, “The company has grown enormously over recent years. Our aim is to sustain this growth, while maintaining our close relationships with customers and a working environment that supports a creative, productive work force. Our open approach to technology—and in particular communications technology—is absolutely crucial to reaching this goal.”

In addition to the headquarters, Windrush has warehouses in Witney and Park Royal, London. A fourth warehouse will open in late 2007, and the acquisition of another company in October 2007 will create a fifth site. More than half the work force moves between these sites, rather than working at just one of them. This includes finance directors, IT staff, warehouse managers, and logistics staff. Historically, all depended on laptops for e-mail access and on mobile phones for telephony. 

Robbie Roberts, IT Manager, Windrush Frozen Foods, says, “With more locations, people are working further apart from their teams, but we want to retain the ethos of a small business. It’s not unusual for someone to spend most of the day traveling for a meeting lasting an hour or two. In short, they either need to travel more often to attend meetings or we need to find more effective ways for them to communicate remotely. Meanwhile, the acquisition presents the challenge of setting up a new IT infrastructure with minimum downtime.”

The company also employs office-based telesales staff. Arpino says, “By equipping these staff members to work from home, we could offer them more flexible hours—to fit in with school schedules, for example. And, at the same time, we would cut management and operational overhead.”

In 2005, Windrush made a strategic decision to move toward a unified communications structure, and it deployed Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server 2005 that same year. With the solution, employees had access to both instant messaging (IM) to communicate in real-time and presence awareness to determine colleagues’ availability.

Alongside Live Communications Server 2005, employees used a voice over IP (VoIP) solution—the Inter-Tel Axxess Converged Communications Platform. This is a software-based solution supporting IP, digital, and analog calls. Employees made internal and external voice calls by logging on to the company’s virtual private network (VPN) with their laptops. 

Next, the team deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging. Employees access e-mail and voice-mail messages through their Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration clients. They can also call their inboxes while traveling, and then answer or delete e-mail messages using voice commands.

Although these deployments were a major step toward unifying the company’s communications, the infrastructure still presented a number of challenges. The Inter-Tel system depended on the availability of the VPN network, but some locations such as airports did not permit users to log on. The solution required costly proprietary handsets. And performance was limited when accessed from outside the network or through the VPN because the Inter-Tel system depended on an add-in to bring voice-mail messages into Office Outlook 2007.

Also, employees were not able to set up video conferences. With many staff working closely with colleagues in other warehouses, Windrush wanted to explore the potential of video conferencing in helping employees to collaborate effectively without face-to-face meetings.

In addition, employees still used two separate interfaces—one for presence and IM, and one for telephony. Roberts says, “What we really wanted was to integrate IM, presence, e-mail, and voice in a single interface. Our aim was for everyone to switch securely between different channels without cost, network, or performance limitations. We also wanted to keep training to a minimum.”

Solution

We spend £1,200-1,600 [U.S.$2,400-3,200] a month on mobile calls across the company. Office Communications Server 2007 is helping us to reduce this expense.  Robbie Roberts IT Manager Windrush Frozen Foods

In early 2006, Roberts’ team began the deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 with a pilot incorporating five users. Following the success of the pilot, the team migrated all 100 employees to the new solution.

The Office Communications Server 2007 architecture includes an Archiving Server, a Mediation Server, and four Edge Servers. The team will add Microsoft Communicator Web Access Server in late 2007. The solution pulls user information from the Active Directory® service in the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. In addition, a Dialogic DMG2030 Media Gateway links Office Communications Server 2007 with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Dialogic offers a range of enterprise-class media gateway products to support Microsoft unified communications solutions. Dialogic Media Gateways are designed for simplicity, PBX interoperability, and price performance. They are also backed by a worldwide distribution and support organization.

Windrush is also using a Nortel telephone system to carry out additional functions such as automatic forwarding of calls to across a specified group of employees when a call is not answered.

The entire Windrush work force now accesses IM, voice, and e-mail through Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, the preferred client for Office Communications Server 2007. Roberts says, “Installing the Office Communications Server 2007 servers and migrating users was very easy. And by working closely with Microsoft specialists who understood what we were trying to achieve, we also gained the skills to manage the solution and tackle any future challenges with confidence.”

As part of the deployment, Windrush tested a number of IP-based devices. Roberts chose the LG-Nortel USB Phone 8501 handset, based on consistent positive feedback from users. LG-Nortel provides comprehensive communications solutions to help organizations run their business effectively, with improved productivity and lower total cost of ownership.

Employees are now making PC-to-PC and PC-to-PSTN calls using Office Communicator 2007. They can escalate from IM conversations to voice calls with a single mouse-click. Colleagues’ and customers’ presence settings are always visible, which helps employees to choose the method of communication most likely to gain a response.

In conjunction with this move toward a truly unified communications structure, Windrush is gradually replacing desktop computers with laptops to make it easier for employees to work on the move. Employees do not need to set up a VPN to access Office Communicator 2007 from their laptops. In addition, the company will replace mobile phones with Windows Mobile® powered Palm® Treo™ 750W smartphones running the Microsoft unified communications solution.

The smartphones deliver rich, intuitive communications capabilities that connect directly with Exchange Server 2007 to deliver wireless voice, e-mail, Web access, and Microsoft Office Mobile applications to users. Employees can log on to their Office Communicator 2007 accounts from any location where there is an Internet connection with the Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile client, and colleagues and customers can contact them by voice call, e-mail, or IM, just as if they were at their desks.

In October to December 2007, Roberts and his team will also roll-out PDAs to all mobile employees, including the HTC Touch and the Vodafone v1415 and v1615.
The IT team is now testing Office Communications Server 2007 video conferencing and plans to roll it out across the company in 2008. In addition, the team is currently developing tabs for Office Communicator 2007 that will integrate with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007, which houses the company’s order processing system. “Office Communications Server 2007 will create a seamless link between our communications tools and our key line-of-business application,” says Arpino.

Roberts was also impressed with the simplicity of the solution’s security settings. “With Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft has achieved 120-bit encryption between client devices in a way that is very easy to implement,” he says.

Benefits

With Office Communications Server 2007, Windrush has achieved a seamless link between all communications. This is helping the company to support its continuing growth with more effective communication between sites. By making it easier for employees to work from home, the solution is also creating new ways of working that are more productive and suit employees’ individual needs.

Voice quality with VoIP is as good as a conventional telephone, if not better. There is no question that the benefits of Office Communications Server 2007 outweigh the costs.  Robert Arpino Chief Executive Officer Windrush Frozen Foods

Simpler Communication Increases Work-from-Home Options

Now that employees can contact each other by telephone, IM, and e-mail with a single mouse-click, new opportunities for working at home have emerged. All an employee needs is a laptop, an Internet connection, and a docking station. As soon as employees switch on their computers, they can access the Office Communicator 2007 interface, without the delay of setting up a VPN. They can see who else is working and how they can be contacted, with no need to remember telephone numbers or e-mail addresses. Colleagues can collaborate with them as easily as if they were at their desks.

“By using Office Communications Server 2007, we no longer have to worry about where someone is and whether we can contact them, which will be an increasing benefit as the company grows. It’s a very efficient, stress-free way of working—everyone here has embraced it,” says Arpino.

Windrush places a strong emphasis on employees’ working hours and conditions, having twice won the Work Life Balance Award, awarded by Investors in People UK. Unified communications is helping the company to build on this strength. Arpino says, “Many of our employees are new fathers who want to pick up their children from nursery school. Before, this would have been difficult. Now, because we’re using Office Communications Server 2007, they can leave early and finish their work at home. This positive impact on employees’ quality of life contributed to our star rating in the 2007 Best Companies Accreditation, which recognizes high standards of employee care.”

Similarly, if an employee is unable to travel into work, working from home is now an option. “One of our secretaries is currently unable to drive to the office due to a minor ailment, but with Office Communicator 2007, she can work from home. That makes a huge difference to us in terms of staff availability,” Arpino says.

Arpino also uses the solution when he monitors the order processing system from home on Sunday evenings. “Now, I can easily communicate with two or three people at the click of a button,” Arpino says. “I can see who else is working, send an IM, and escalate to a call if I need to resolve an issue. Office Communications Server 2007 also saves me time because I don’t have to switch between two different devices for voice, presence, and IM.”

Increased Flexibility Reduces Travel by up to 40 Percent per Employee

Increased working from home means that employees spend less time traveling. For example, two members of the telesales team now work from home twice a week. Another completes one shift at home each week, traveling 20 percent less. The company pays travel costs for a number of employees, so this represents a real saving. “Office Communications Server 2007 is reducing our costs and our carbon footprint. Some employees now make 40 percent fewer journeys to and from work,” says Arpino. 

In addition, Windrush is using peer-to-peer video conferencing to replace some face-to-face-meetings attended by employees from different warehouses. With fewer journeys, the company is saving fuel costs. Employees are more productive because they spend less time driving between sites and no longer have to spend most of a day traveling to attend an hour-long meeting. 

One-Day Rollout to New Company

Roberts expects to deploy Office Communications Server 2007 at the company’s new office in just one day: “To have a comprehensive communications structure up and running that quickly is fantastic—we wouldn’t be able to do that with any other system. Office Communications Server 2007 is a major factor in our confidence about the acquisition process, again supporting the company’s growth.”

Conferencing and IM Improve Customer Service

Arpino and Roberts have discussed the potential of Office Communications Server 2007 with a number of customers. “When customers visit us, we show them the kitchens, but we also show them our IT systems—such as Office Communications Server 2007—because they’re such an important part of the business,” says Arpino. Three customers are considering deployment of Office Communications Server 2007, partly because of the possibilities that federation will bring.

Arpino says: “With federation provided by Office Communications Server 2007, we can use video conferencing to show customers new recipes. This is much more compelling than just talking about it. Office Communications Server 2007 will provide a richer, more engaging way of interacting with our customers. It will give us a new way to display our products and help our customers make informed choices.”

Windrush employees can also reach customers who don’t have Office Communications Server 2007. “We can still enhance the way we work with customers by using Yahoo or MSN, through Office Communications Server 2007 public IM connectivity, to share presence information and send IMs,” says Roberts.

VoIP Reduces Mobile Phone Call Costs and Improves Voice Quality

With fixed-price bandwidth widely available, it makes sense for Windrush to transport as much voice data using VoIP as possible. “We spend £1,200–1,600 (U.S.$2,400–3,200) a month on mobile calls across the company. Office Communications Server 2007 is helping us to reduce this expense,” says Roberts. “And the devices we are now using are also cheaper.”

Employees have reported improved voice quality both inside and outside the corporate network, as compared with the previous system. “With the Inter-Tel solution, we had to introduce a different Codex to send data across our WAN link, which impaired voice quality. With Office Communications Server 2007, we don’t have to. Voice quality with VoIP is as good as a conventional telephone, if not better. There is no question that the benefits of Office Communications Server 2007 outweigh the costs,” says Arpino.

Integrated System Minimizes Training Costs

With an integrated suite of systems, employees quickly adapt to each new element. Arpino says: “New starters find it easy to operate Office Communicator 2007. The challenge with any software is to make sure people use it to its full potential, but Office Communicator 2007 is easy to learn because it’s fairly intuitive. New starters find it easy to operate too, because they are already familiar with other Microsoft applications.”

Integration with Key Application Increases Flexibility

With guaranteed next-day delivery on all orders, it’s imperative that the telesales team can process orders on tight deadlines. The IT team is developing Office SharePoint Server 2007 tabs that will appear on employees’ Office Communicator 2007 interface. This will give them instant access to the company’s key line-of-business application—the order processing system.

“We take orders up to 1 a.m. GMT each morning,” says Arpino. “With reliable access to voice, e-mail, IM, and the processing system through the Office Communicator 2007 client, telesales staff won’t need to come into the office for late night or early morning shifts. This will cut operational and management overhead and give staff members a more convenient way of completing these shifts.”

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 Windrush Frozen Foods products and services, call +44 (0)8450 774452 or visit the Web site at:
www.windrushfrozen.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 October 2007