How a Cloud Solution Delivered Scalability, Efficiency, and Competitive Edge for Growing Government Contractor
Client
A twelve location privately held United States defense and services company. With over 600 employees and a strong presence in both government and commercial markets, they were looking to simplify and add scalability in anticipation of potential mergers and acquisitions.
Challenge
An aging premises-based phone system that was challenging to support and siphoning time away from crucial IT initiatives. IT leadership saw no value in running a PBX and wanted to focus on supporting their end users rather than equipment. Scalability was a problem with the premises-based system. Installing voice circuits at a new location was time and labor intensive. Business continuity was critical because the majority of employees relied heavily on colleagues at other locations. Many of the offices were somewhat remote, creating a difficult mobile phone experience. Having access to a stable voice platform was critical.
Solution
After a detailed review of their requirements, ARG helped the client deploy a robust unified communication as a service (UCaaS) platform. The solution included presence, a mobile application, voicemail transcription, CRM and Skype for Business integration. Premium contact center functionality allowed call center agents to improve the ease of doing business for government and commercial clients. They also deployed fax to email capability to ensure the security of inbound fax communications. Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) was implemented with the provider to ensure excellent user experience and optimize call quality. New phones and switches were also included.
Financial Impact
The client consolidated locations across the US on a single invoice. Equipment charges are included allowing the client to scale to incorporate M&A with predicable costs.
Results
The organization was able to standardize on a platform that is scalable, reliable and more cost-effective. Since the majority of new locations had existing internet, standing up the sites on the new platform was much easier. The UCaaS provider can configure and provision on an existing circuit in 48 hours. This significantly improves rollout time and deployment costs.
Conclusion
Since moving to this cloud-based Unified Communications platform, the company can easily expand their operations. Standing up a new office or bringing another company on board through acquisition becomes easier as the organization moves toward more “as a service” solutions. UCaaS allocates more time to focus on key IT priorities to help win bids and position them as a thought leader. This change has enabled IT leadership to drive revenue growth above all.
