4-page Case Study - Posted 2/11/2009

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Genesis Energy

Energy Company Cuts Costs, Boosts Productivity with Unified Communications

Genesis Energy, which focuses on the midstream segment of the energy industry, is always looking for technology that can help it reduce costs and increase productivity. When the company began planning a move to a new headquarters site, its IT department investigated options for replacing an aging Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone system. After evaluating competing products, Genesis decided to install a unified communications solution from Microsoft, including Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging. Now employees have an easier time keeping up with important phone calls, the IT department responds faster to help-desk requests, and Genesis is poised for potential savings up to U.S. $50,000 annually by reducing travel-related and communications-related expenses.

Situation

Genesis Energy, based in Houston, Texas, provides a variety of services to the energy industry, including transportation, storage, and marketing of crude oil, carbon dioxide, natural gas, and refined products. In this capacity it serves commercial operations such as refineries, food processors, and chemical processors. In addition to its Houston headquarters, Genesis operates out of 14 regional offices in the southern states that border the Gulf of Mexico.

We estimate that the Microsoft unified communications solution with Web-based conferencing has the potential to save us more than $2,000 a month due to reduced travel expenses.  Firoz Jhaver Director of Information Technology Genesis Energy

“Bringing the old phone system with us was out of the question. The system was substantially obsolete. Replacement parts and reliable service were increasingly difficult to come by,” says Firoz Jhaver, Director of Information Technology for Genesis. “So before our move, we began to evaluate what kinds of phone systems were available, and what benefits we could realize by installing one at our new location.”

The company was particularly interested in voice over IP (VoIP) systems that could deliver cost advantages and greater efficiencies by integrating with PC network systems. These benefits included more centralized and responsive IT management, lower costs stemming from Internet-based telephony, faster communications between employees, and rich communications features for mobile workers. The company also wanted to reduce costs related to travel, a large budget item for an organization with many regional offices.

“After investigating our options, we narrowed our choice down to deploying a unified communications system from either Microsoft or Cisco,” Jhaver says. “We decided to conduct demonstrations of each system to see how they would do.”

Solution

Genesis Energy chose to upgrade to a unified messaging and communications system based on Microsoft® products and technologies, including Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition. For its phone calls, the company installed Polycom IP-based phones including the Polycom CX700 and CX200 models. The solution uses an AudioCodes Mediant 1000 gateway that links to a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) service. The PRI service provides multiple channels for delivering voice, data, and video-conferencing capabilities.

For Genesis, a key aspect of the Microsoft solution was the integrated features and functions of the unified communications, such as easy call forwarding, presence information, and the use of a central phone list that the company can maintain through the Active Directory® service, a component of Windows Server®.

The company was also excited about other features of the Microsoft solution. These include fax messaging that is integrated with inboxes in the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client,  Web-based conferencing, and presence, which lets users quickly determine the availability of colleagues;. The company is also using instant messaging, which is relatively new to many Genesis users but which is rapidly gaining acceptance as an important communications tool. 

The Genesis IT team worked with Insource Technology, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in Houston, to design and install the new unified messaging system. The two teams began designing the solution in July 2008 and worked together for about four weeks to prepare for deployment to the new headquarters building, which Genesis moved into in September 2008.

The instant messaging in the Microsoft unified communications solution is a powerful tool that is going to help to speed decision making over the long term.  Firoz Jhaver Director of Information Technology Genesis Energy

“The deployment went smoothly,” says Tim Harrington, Technical Manager for Insource Technology, adding that the rollout included five end-user training sessions on how to make the switch from a traditional PBX-based phone to an IP-based phone and to demonstrate all the functionality of Office Communications Server. “The only real issue involved integration of analog and e-faxes at the gateway, but we resolved this quickly after talking with AudioCodes.”

Benefits

With its new solution, Genesis Energy is benefiting from more efficient communications employees can use to perform tasks and resolve business issues faster than before. The company has eliminated an aging and hard-to-maintain PBX, replacing it with tightly integrated communications technology that is easy for a small IT staff to maintain. The new solution’s Web-based conferencing is saving the company money by reducing travel expenses and communications costs.

More Efficient Communications

Mobile employees at Genesis need communications capabilities as rich as what they have in the office so that they can stay on top of their work. Jhaver says that the new communications solution helps these employees to get more done when they’re away from their offices.

“The presence technology in the Microsoft unified communications solution is a big benefit to our users, especially when they are out on the road,” says Jhaver. “It makes it so much simpler to keep track of the availability of people in our offices. For example, an executive who needs to speak with a manager as soon as possible can use presence information to determine when the manager is available for a phone call. This is much more efficient than leaving multiple phone messages or sending several e-mail messages. The executive can also easily catch up on voice mail by listening to it from the Outlook inbox.”
 
Several departments in the company rely on faxing to communicate with external partners and vendors. Jhaver says that the unified messaging that the Microsoft solution delivers has helped streamline this particular business process.

“At headquarters, we’ve eliminated three of the six fax machines that we used to operate for outgoing faxes because we’ve provided key employees such as crude oil representatives, human resources administrators, and accounting personnel with their own personal fax numbers,” says Jhaver. “People can receive faxes conveniently through their own Outlook inboxes.”

Instant messaging, although new to many employees, is quickly gaining acceptance as an efficient tool for getting quick information. “Instant messaging is still catching on as a corporate communications tool, but the people who are using it regularly see that it is a great way to get quick pieces of information without having to pick up a phone or send an e-mail message,” says Jhaver. “The instant messaging in the Microsoft unified communications solution is a powerful tool that is going to help speed decision making over the long term.”

For our Houston operations, the Microsoft unified communications technology has made it possible for us to reduce our ongoing phone-related expenses to about 50 percent of what they used to be.  Firoz Jhaver Director of Information Technology Genesis Energy

Easier IT Administration

The tight integration of the company’s communications technologies is helping streamline procedures for the Genesis corporate IT support group, which consists of five people. “The integration of different kinds of messages with the Microsoft solution is a boon to our department,” says Jhaver. “We used to face some real frustrations in getting IT problems resolved fast enough to satisfy our customers—the other employees of the company—because help-desk messages could get stuck in voice mail or e-mail. With Microsoft unified communications, if a call to the help desk is not immediately answered, the call is routed to a group e-mail that is distributed to the IT team so the first person who is available can respond to it.

“Using Microsoft unified messaging and communications for our help desk has reduced response time on most help-desk calls to minutes, instead of the several hours it could have taken in the past,” he continues. “It has resulted in significant improvement in customer satisfaction.”

The deployment of the Microsoft communications technology has also made it possible for the IT department to centralize the management of its critical infrastructure components. The company no longer has to rely on external vendors for routine maintenance, updates, and parts. 

Up to U.S. $50,000 Savings Annually

The efficiencies delivered by the Microsoft communications technology are also saving the company money. “We’re now increasingly using the virtual-conferencing capabilities of Office Communications Server,” says Jhaver. “Because of this, we expect lower travel expenses going forward. We estimate that the Microsoft unified communications solution with Web-based conferencing has the potential to save us more than $2,000 a month due to reduced travel expenses. It’s easier, faster, and far more cost-effective to simply start a Web-based conference instead of traveling off site.”

The company’s IT department also estimates that it is saving about $1,500 a month just in Houston by streamlining and consolidating its phone system. “For our Houston operations, the Microsoft unified communications technology has made it possible for us to reduce our ongoing phone-related expenses to about 50 percent of what they used to be,” says Jhaver.

Over the long term, says Jhaver, the Microsoft communications technology is expected to greatly increase daily operational efficiency and reduce long-term costs. “The ability to connect with everyone has improved drastically, and being able to listen to voice-mail messages, to view faxes, to find missed calls, and to check e-mail all in Outlook—this is a huge productivity benefit.”

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 Insource Technology products and services, call (281) 774-4000 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.insource.com/

For more information about Genesis Energy products and services, call (713) 860-2500 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.genlp.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 February 2009