Gen-i has announced it is working with Microsoft and Nortel to implement a unified communications solution for the New Zealand office of financial software and services giant SunGard. The implementation will include one of the first roll-outs worldwide of Microsoft’s new Office Communications Server.
Gen-i has brought together unified communications offerings from Microsoft and Nortel to provide SunGard with a solution that will enable staff to manage voice, text and instant messaging from the desktop. SunGard expects to see a number of business benefits as a result of the project, including substantial cost savings, increased staff satisfaction and increased business efficiency and productivity. The new solution will also improve the time-to-market for its software upgrades, patches and products.
SunGard is a $5.6 billion global company and the New Zealand team works daily on development projects with colleagues in overseas offices. With the differences in time zones and the need to create virtual collaborative teams, it has always been a challenge to contact co-workers with ease. This meant staff often had to leave messages for each other or correspond by email, slowing down the decision-making process.
Using ‘presence’, staff will now be able to see if the person they want to contact is available. At any point a user can see whether someone is online, out of the office or busy, and can contact them with a mouse-click, rather than dialling up or using longer methods.
SunGard New Zealand IT Director, Steve Kennedy, says the unified communications solution will change the way local staff communicate globally and greatly improve levels of responsiveness by allowing staff to action work without delay.
“We expect to see significant improvements in efficiency and time savings by simplifying and easing our local and global communications. The unified communications solution will allow staff to quickly contact staff in other offices, and this will improve the flow of work and speed up the decision-making process.”
Kennedy anticipates this new application is also likely to lead to a change of culture in the SunGard workplace due to the social aspects of messaging and by using the ‘presence’ function.
“Unified communications provides a more flexible way of working and allows staff to be contacted the way they want. The new solution has given us so many new features, we will be developing guidelines to ensure staff can take full advantage of the system,” says Kennedy.
The new unified communications solution will see Microsoft's Office Communications Server (OCS) integrated with Nortel's Communication Server 1000 PBX hardware to create a seamless collaboration environment using Microsoft's Office Communicator client software.
Office move drives upgrade
SunGard was looking for an innovative and cost effective way to upgrade its legacy telephony system as part of an office relocation scheduled for early 2008. According to Kennedy, this is a significant project that will move around 130 people spread over three sites into a single building.
“We are replacing the cabling and telephony in the new building while the rest of the infrastructure is being moved across. We needed a partner who could guide us across the project to achieve a seamless integration of our IT and telecommunications.”
The new unified communications system will deliver significant cost savings for SunGard with the cabling redesign reducing the number of cables from four per desk to three, and cutting the cabling count from 800 to 600 overall. The company has also selected USB headsets for development staff, allowing them to reduce the number of desk-phones from 150 to 50.
Kennedy added that having state-of-the-art technology and systems will also help with attracting and retaining good staff, particularly with Generation Y employees and software developers who expect that the technologies they use in their personal life are also available at work.
SunGard partners with Gen-i
SunGard chose Gen-i as its partner soon after a visit to Gen-i’s unified communications demonstration centre in Christchurch. Kennedy says the unified communications solution was such a perfect fit for SunGard’s business model.
“Gen-i presented us with a solution that meets our needs exactly. We have an extremely experienced team of local SunGard IT technical staff, and working with Gen-i gave us the added bonus of the support of a partner that could help us pull it all together.
“We chose Gen-i because they could provide an end-to-end solution, and we’re also a Microsoft development shop so choosing the Microsoft unified communications suite was also an easy decision,” said Kennedy.
The project begun in November 2007, with the upgrade to the Microsoft Office Communications Server enabling instant messaging within the company. Late last year, SunGard’s internal IT team tested the headsets with Jabra, resulting in staff being able to call each other using soft phones. Then in January 2008, the SunGard IT team together with Gen-i and Nortel installed the new PBX system to complete the project and enable users to dial out using headsets and use the voicemail component.
Unified Communications leader
SunGard joins a growing list of Gen-i unified communications clients taking advantage of the convergence of IT and telecommunications and the new opportunities this makes possible. Gen-i’s Head of ICT Solutions, Peter Finch says one of the ways Gen-i assists companies like SunGard that are migrating to unified communications, is through simplified integration.
“We understand the challenges our clients face as they look to integrate their unified communications capability into the core applications that underpin their business. We're focused on simplifying communications for our clients and, together with the other partners, we are delivering great results,” said Finch.
Although Gen-i is the only Nortel/Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) UC Specialist Partner in New Zealand, it is technology agnostic offering a range of unified communications solutions.
“Gen-i has built an unrivalled capability in delivering unified communications solutions. We can build our clients’ UC capabilities as they go by adopting function by function, rather than an outright replace of systems.
“We are the only ICT provider spanning telecommunications and IT that can provide end-to-end solutions, or any individual component, and we deliver the best innovative solutions that best meet the needs of our clients,” said Finch.
The project is also a pilot for the rest of the organisation and SunGard plans to rollout the unified communications platform out across the organisation internationally, starting with its Sydney office in 2008.