Microsoft Case Study: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

UST Global provides end-to-end IT services and solutions for Global 2000 companies. It has 7,000 employees working in offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. The company delivers pragmatic IT solutions that help its customers achieve their most critical business objectives. Employees were relying on a mix of services to connect with their colleagues and customers, but the company wanted its consultants to have the most up-to-date, accessible communications network available to communicate with its customers. UST Global decided to implement a Microsoft Unified Communications solution to provide capabilitiesâ€"such as presence, instant messaging, voice, and conferencing. It expects to reduce costs while improving productivity up to 20 percent and providing a widely accessible communications network so that employees can connect to customers anywhere, anytime.

While UST Global wanted to provide employees with better access to telephony services when they were in the office, adding endpoints and hardware for the VoIP lines did not address all the issues. Mobile and long distance charges would continue to add up due to the number of employees relying on mobile phones as their primary communication because of travel and time spent at customer sites.

The last few years

Over the last few years, the company has expanded rapidly, adding new locations and new employees. UST Global needed a system that was more scalableâ€"and more affordable. With the current system, it was too expensive to add hardware at new locations and to add new users at existing locations. The company also wanted to provide more conferencing options, not only to reduce travel but to provide customers with the instant communication they expect. Finally, it wanted a communications solution that would integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange Server email messaging and collaboration software and the Microsoft Office business productivity suite.

Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Dell, UST Global began the rollout of its unified communications solution in April 2010. At a central data center in Tiruvananthapuram, India, UST Global deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (now known as Microsoft Lync Server 2010), using mediation servers to route calls through Office Communications Server to connect to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN) through the Cisco IP PBX. In the current implementation, all calls are routed through the United States. "This solution provides seamless integration between Cisco Call Manager and Office Communicator. Our employees don't feel that we have two separate systems for communication," explains Murali Gopalan, CIO at UST Global,

Most UST Global employees will use Office Communicator on their portable computersâ€"with soft phones or headsets for placing voice callsâ€"but if they need to work away from the office and do not have access to their computers, UST Global also implemented Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access, so employees can send instant messages, place VoIP calls, or join conferences from any computer that has an Internet connection and a browser. UST Global has enabled all capabilities for Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile as well, so employees can also use the client on their mobile phones to send messages or view presence information.

UST Global plans to transition other communications services, such as web conferencing, to Office Communications Server. Employees will continue to use WebEx to hold web conferences, but only the meeting host will have to join through WebEx: all others will join through Communicator. Another capability it plans to implement is Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging, allowing employees to manage their voice mail through Office Outlook. They will view voice messages directly in their inboxes, where they can respond to messages through email or view a caller's presence information and return the call immediately with one click. The company will also consider implementing the group chat feature. It allows employees to join and leave instant messaging sessions as needed, and it provides a record of the session for participants to review.

Employees are also taking advantage of instant communication to save time. "We estimate that employee productivity has improved by about 20 percent, simply because employees use instant messaging and voice more frequently than email," says Mr. Felix. With a workforce spread across multiple geographical locations around the world, the ability to view presence and interact with colleagues immediately means that employees can get their questions answered and meet deadlines more effectively than if they had to wait for someone to return an email or a phone call.

With Communicator Mobile and Communicator Web Access, UST Global also reduces long distance and mobile phone charges. Since most employees take their portable computers with them when they are out of the office, having contact options other than their mobile phones helps to keep costs down.

Presence information makes it easier for employees to collaborate with one another across distances, and desktop sharing has made it easier for people to share important information instantly, rather than sending attachments through email or having to upload documents to a shared location and wait for a review. "We are using Live Meeting to hold conferences between multiple parties, including our vendors and partners," adds Mr. Gopalan. "Online meetings help our teams to work together, and with Office Communications Server, they are easy to schedule through Outlook or initiate from a chat or conversation when needed."