Bavarian Auto Group

Auto Company Saves $400,000, Enhances Employee Communications with New Solution

Bavarian Auto Group is a growing assembler and distributor of BMW cars and other luxury vehicles throughout Egypt. The company’s 1,300 employees work from offices across the country and often travel outside of Egypt for business. Many of these workers find it difficult to communicate effectively using only the company’s voice-mail and e-mail systems. Because it wanted to reduce travel, save money, and give employees more flexible communication options, Bavarian Auto Group implemented a unified communications solution based on Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging. Now, employees can communicate more effectively and collaborate more often. In addition, with the reduction of regional and international travel, the organization has saved time and money and improved its productivity. The solution also simplifies system administration.

Situation

Bavarian Auto Group, based in Cairo, Egypt, assembles, imports, distributes, and sells luxury vehicles from BMW, Rolls-Royce, MINI, and other well-known automobile companies. Established in 2003, Bavarian Auto Group has annual sales of U.S.$300 million and is currently the market leader in Egypt for luxury automobile sales.

We are saving about $400,000 per year, because our unified communications solution, based on Office Communications Server 2007, gives us the ability to make calls and hold conferences on our computers.  Zakaria Elnaggar IT Manager Bavarian Auto Group

The organization, which has 1,300 employees across Egypt and the Middle East, operates two factories in Egypt that produce cars and car components. Bavarian Auto Group also has seven locations, including the main office in Cairo, along with showrooms and service centers throughout Egypt. 

Because most of the components the company assembles are produced in Germany, China, and India, frequent travel is a way of life for many employees. “Quite often, our managers and production employees have to go to those countries for manufacturing training or to address supply- chain problems,” says Zakaria Elnaggar, IT Manager, Bavarian Auto Group. IT department workers, too, must travel frequently, as the company’s internal operations are spread out over such a wide geographic region. “I’m away from my Cairo office at least two and sometimes three days each week,” Elnaggar says. “I am often driving to our other sites, each at least two hours away, for IT training meetings or to work on IT problems.” 

The company’s IT infrastructure, though, could not sufficiently support the company’s growing conferencing and communications needs. Bavarian Auto Group had depended on a Siemens Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone system and the Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 e-mail messaging system for communications through voice mail and e-mail. “Many times, if they were away from the office, employees could not reach the person back in Cairo that they needed to talk to about a project,” says Elnaggar. “They would have to leave a voice mail and hope that colleague would return the call in a timely fashion, or they would send an e-mail message and hope there was a response.”

Collaboration was another growing business need. More and more, Bavarian Auto Group employees needed to share sales data and project documents online. In an effort to increase collaboration, the organization had implemented Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The company also deployed the instant-messaging (IM) capabilities of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 to a select group of users. “We were still missing the ability to completely integrate all these tools,” Elnaggar states. “We wanted to be able to have an employee at another office send an instant message to someone in the Cairo office to discuss project information in a SharePoint document and start a video conference immediately if they needed to. We were also limited in that we could not share documents while on a conference call.”

Additionally, Bavarian Auto Group was interested in reducing employee travel and the costs associated with it. “I was recently on business trip in India,” Elnaggar says. “To stay in touch with my colleagues and make sure I was able to manage my projects, I had to call my voice mail. Every time I did that, it cost about U.S. $6 per minute, which was very expensive over the course of several days.”

In order to address these critical business issues, Bavarian Auto Group decided to search for a new solution that would integrate instant messaging and video conferencing, as well as voice-mail and e-mail functionality.

Solution

In January 2008, Bavarian Auto Group learned about two new Microsoft communications solutions: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging. Office Communications Server 2007 integrates voice mail and e-mail to give users the ability to send and receive phone calls and instant messages or to initiate audio, video, and Web conferences from within Microsoft Office applications. This technology also contains presence awareness features that give users the ability to see which of their colleagues are available and how best to communicate with them.

With Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, users can receive voice-mail and e-mail messages in the inbox of the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client and can listen to voice-mail messages on their phones.

The Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging solution has reduced our travel by 20 percent, and that number will grow.  Zakaria Elnaggar IT Manager Bavarian Auto Group

Bavarian Auto Group decided to implement a unified communications solution that would combine Office Communications Server 2007 with Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging. Working with technology partner Synergy Professional Services, a division of Global Knowledge, Bavarian Auto Group first migrated from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007. “We had worked with BMW Egypt in the past on several other projects,” says Reda Sherief, Unified Communications Specialist, Synergy Professional Services. “We were very happy to work with them again.”

In a second implementation phase, Microsoft Services consultants and Middle East Network Solutions (MNS) assisted Bavarian Auto Group in the deployment of Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Office Communications Server 2007. During this phase, the team implemented the solution’s voice features by deploying the Mediation Server role of Office Communications Server 2007, which was integrated with the existing Siemens PBX through a Quintum gateway to provide voice over IP (VoIP) capabilities. “We all worked together to ensure that the instant messaging, voice, and video capabilities of this solution were in place,” says Omar El-Sherif, Technology Specialist-Unified Communications, Microsoft Egypt.

The team then installed the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client on user computers to provide presence awareness, conferencing, and instant-messaging capabilities.

With this new, unified communications solution, employees at Bavarian Auto Group have fully integrated communications capabilities. For instance, they can place and receive phone calls, send and receive instant messages, and escalate instant-messaging sessions into video conferences—all from Office Communicator 2007. The company’s employees also now have one primary contact number, so they can easily be reached whether they are in the office or on the road.

“The different partners worked very well together during the implementation,” says El-Sherif. “There was definitely good collaboration between BMW Egypt, Global Knowledge, and Microsoft Egypt.”

Benefits

With Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging in place, Bavarian Auto Group has been able to improve overall employee communications and make online collaboration much more flexible. As a result, the company has reduced travel by 20 percent, and workplace productivity has increased. The new solution also integrates well with the company’s IT environment, making network administration easier. 

Improves Employee Communications

With the new, unified communications solution, employees at Bavarian Auto Group have a greatly improved ability to communicate. Whether they are working from their offices or meeting with an auto manufacturer in another country, employees can check their voice mail from their computers or, if they are not near a computer, listen to their e-mail messages from their cell phones. “Previously, I could only use voice mail and e-mail to manage my work day,” says Elnaggar. “Now, using Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, I can send an e-mail message, place a call from Office Communicator, or send an instant message to a colleague if I have a question that needs to be answered fast. I have the ability to communicate whenever and however I want to.”

Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server Unified Messaging 2007 have made collaboration and communication much stronger…This is without a doubt the best solution we have ever implemented here.  Zakaria Elnaggar IT Manager Bavarian Auto Group

Elnaggar and his colleagues can also communicate better because of the solution’s presence awareness feature. “The presence function of Office Communicator 2007 means that I don’t have to spend time wondering why someone isn’t returning my calls, and waiting for those calls,” Elnaggar says. “Instead, I can see if that person is in a meeting, out of the office, or on another call. I can choose to send an instant message if a person is in a meeting, particularly if I have an urgent question.”

Simplifies Collaboration

Collaboration is also much simpler now, because Bavarian Auto Group employees can escalate a phone conversation or instant- messaging session into a Live Meeting or audio conference from Office Communicator 2007. “If I am at a customer site and in an instant-messaging session with somebody in the Cairo office, I only need to click a button in Office Communicator 2007 to make that conversation into a video conference with a whiteboard,” says Elnaggar. “It is remarkably flexible and makes collaboration easier.”

With this new ability to communicate quickly and easily, the company’s employees can work together much more effectively than they could before. They can now collaborate on Office SharePoint® Server 2007 sales documents during video conferences, for example. “It is so easy to share documents during a video conference because of the integration of Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Office Communications Server 2007,” Elnaggar says. “Our sales managers, in particular, now have a more flexible way to discuss sales data and other business- reporting information. They can get information instantaneously, which helps them negotiate faster and better with customers.”

Reduces Travel Costs

Because the company’s unified communications solution brings together shared computers, video conferencing, and VoIP communication, Bavarian Auto Group has been able to reduce the need for employees to travel to other offices for meetings. “The Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging solution has reduced our travel by 20 percent, and that number will grow,” says Elnaggar. “Now, I am only away from my office one day per week and sometimes less.”

Because employees are traveling less, the company is saving money that it had previously spent on long-distance charges and other travel expenses. “We are saving about $400,000 per year, because our unified communications solution, based on Office Communications Server 2007, gives us the ability to make calls and hold conferences on our computers,” notes Elnaggar.

Increases Employee Productivity

As a result of the new solution’s integrated communications capabilities, Bavarian Auto Group employees are also able to be more productive on the job. Instead of using separate e-mail and voice-mail systems, employees can now view voice-mail messages in their e-mail inboxes and can view all of their important contacts in one central address book. “I save around 16 hours each week, because Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging help me work more efficiently,” Elnaggar says. “Because I have more time, I can accomplish more than I could previously.”

In addition, because the solution seamlessly integrates video conferencing with e-mail and instant messaging, employees communicate with each other much more regularly. “Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server Unified Messaging 2007 have made collaboration and communication much stronger, and as a result, we are much more productive as a company,” says Elnaggar. “This is without a doubt the best solution we have ever implemented here.”

Integrates with Infrastructure

When Bavarian Auto Group started its search for a unified communications solution, it specifically sought one that would integrate with its existing Windows®-based IT environment and PBX system. “This solution integrates very well with the infrastructure we already have,” says Hesham Mostafa, Network and Communications Section Head, Bavarian Auto Group. “Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging work very well with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and our Siemens PBX, so now we only have one communication layer.”

This level of integration also means that Mostafa’s job as a network administrator is easier. “Because of how everything works together,” Mostafa says, “I can simply use the Active Directory® service to manage both the voice and e-mail environments. It is very easy to configure and administer.”

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:
http://www.microsoft.com/

For more information about Bavarian Auto Group products and services, visit the Web site at:
http://www.bag-eg.com/

For more information about Middle East Network Solutions products and services, visit the Web site at:
http://www.mnseg.com/

For more information about Synergy/Global Knowledge products and services, visit the Web site at:
www.globalknowledge.net/synergy

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Document published July 2008