Customer Solution Case Study
/ Financial Firm Upgrades Communication Solution to Reduce Phone Bill 50 Percent
Overview
Country or Region: China
Industry: Financial services
Customer Profile
Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, Bosera Asset Management serves more than 11 million corporate customers and 6 million pensioners. It employs approximately 400 people.
Business Situation
Bosera wanted to deploy the latest communications technologies to unite a geographically dispersed work force and improve productivity and customer service.
Solution
Bosera deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010 in a pilot project to evaluate the benefits of simplified access to all communications options for employees.
Benefits
· Improved productivity
· Streamlined IT administration
· Reduced costs / “The new function of Lync Server 2010 brings us an improved collaboration experience, thereby enhancing the efficiency of our work.”
Linqi, Chief Information Officer, Bosera Asset Management
Bosera is a large financial services firm in China, with 6 offices located throughout the country. Bosera wanted to help employees to communicate and collaborate efficiently so they could improve customer service and drive business agility. It achieved these goals by deploying a Microsoft communications solution that the workforce used for presence information, instant messaging, web conferencing, and enterprise voice capabilities. To improve staff productivity even more, Bosera deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010, the latest communications solution from Microsoft. Bosera employees gain seamless access to all Lync Server 2010 technologies using the Microsoft Lync 2010 client, and IT staffers can use centralized tools to save time managing the communications solution. When it is fully deployed on Lync Server 2010, Bosera expects to reduce long distance phone charges by 50 percent.
Situation
Established in 1998, Bosera Asset Management Company was one of the first fund management companies established in China and today ranks among the country’s five largest fund companies. Bosera is a professional asset management institution that provides customers with investment services. Other lines of business include fund raising, fund distribution, asset management, and other businesses licensed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. As of December 31, 2010, Bosera has managed more than 116.2 billion Yuan and total dividends of more than 53.2 billion Yuan of public fund assets. Bosera also has a large business in managing pension assets.
Bosera meets Global Investment Performance Standards for calculating and reporting investment results to prospective clients, and was one of the first companies within the Chinese fund industry to achieve Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 certification. The company established a comprehensive platform of systems and procedures for efficient and effective business processes and investment practices. All of these processes and practices depend on a reliable, feature-rich communications solution that employees can use for the efficient customer service required to stay ahead in the financial service industry.
To communicate with colleagues and customers, Bosera had deployed a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone system from Avaya and the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 messaging environment. While some executives used a Polycom video-conferencing system for important internal meetings, there was no web-conferencing option for the majority of information workers. Consequently, these employees would conduct impromptu meetings by telephone, driving up long-distance bills on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and roaming charges for mobile phones.
Deployment of an Enterprise Communications Solution
Bosera needed a more cost-effective communications solution for its geographically dispersed employees. In 2008, the company chose Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 to provide its 400 employees with web conferencing, instant messaging (IM), and presence information. These features were eagerly adopted by information workers who use IM and presence to boost real-time collaboration across the enterprise. Employees also used Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 for web conferencing. These technologies helped to reduce travel costs.
To maintain the value of its existing communications infrastructure, Bosera integrated Office Communications Server 2007 into its Avaya phone system to deliver enterprise voice capabilities to the work force and to reduce PSTN costs. Also known as voice over IP, enterprise voice integrates voice communications with IM and conferencing. The IT staff also integrated Office Communications Server with its Polycom video-conferencing system so that employees could initiate a video conference through Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 as well as share desktops for more productive collaboration.
The Office Communications Server 2007 deployment consisted of six servers, including a front-end server, an audiovisual-conferencing server, monitoring and archiving servers, a server running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise x86 data management software, and an edge server to handle access for mobile and remote users.
Opportunity for Enhanced Functionality
Bosera was pleased with the progress that the company made with its Office Communications Server 2007 deployment and the company was eager to move ahead with its plans for unified communications. While employees were used to the dual clients—Office Live Meeting 2007 and Office Communicator 2007—IT staff would have preferred to manage only one. So when they heard about the next generation of Office Communications Server called Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and the Lync 2010 client that delivers a single access point to all voice and conferencing options, Bosera decided to evaluate the new products.
The company had recently upgraded to Exchange Server 2010, and the IT staffers also wanted to evaluate the benefits of interoperability between Lync Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2010. Also, they wanted to take advantage of their investment in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, which interoperates with Lync Server 2010, to achieve seamless monitoring capabilities of the new communication solution. IT staffers were interested in the improvements in deployment and management tools and the improved software development kit (SDK) that Lync Server 2010 offered. Bosera also saw the value of introducing employees to the rich social networking features that comes with Lync Server 2010.
Solution
In November 2010, Bosera began deploying Microsoft Lync Server 2010 in a pilot project to provide enhanced versions of the communications capabilities provided by the product’s predecessor—presence, IM, conferencing, and enterprise voice. Lync Server 2010 can be deployed easily in a virtualized environment, which was the preferred option for Bosera IT staffers. They wanted to take advantage of the benefits of virtualization—reduced hardware costs and simplified IT management—while at the same time expanding the company’s communications solution. Because Bosera licensed the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise operating system, it already had a virtualization solution—the Hyper-V virtualization technology that’s built in.
Bosera deployed the new communications solution to run on two physical hosts that support the Lync Server 2010 virtual machines. The deployment has a front-end server, a monitoring server that collects VoIP usage information, an edge server, and a back-end server running SQL Server 2008 in a virtual environment at headquarters. IT staffers then deployed the Lync 2010 client to 30 employees in the marketing, investment, and research, and IT departments in Beijing and Shenzhen.
IT staff use the Lync Server 2010 Control Panel, a graphical, web-based user interface, to perform many administration and management tasks. For server monitoring, the staff installed the Lync Server 2010 Monitoring Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, which provides full event and performance monitoring for all Lync Server 2010 roles. And use of the Active Directory service eliminates the need for separate user and policy databases. IT staffers can use role-based access control to assign appropriate roles and scopes to different administrators. When Bosera employees are authenticated in Active Directory, there’s no need to enter a password or PIN when they join a conference through Lync 2010.
By using the Lync 2010 client, employees no longer have to switch between Office Communicator and Office Live Meeting to initiate conferencing and desktop or application sharing sessions. Instead, Lync is the only client needed for all types of meetings. With it, Bosera employees can view presence information, initiate an IM session, place voice calls, and arrange video or web meetings from a single interface and from anywhere that they have Internet connection.
Lync Server 2010 also offers integration with Exchange Server 2010 and the Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 messaging and collaboration client for single-click conference scheduling. Employees can use the enhanced presence and IM capabilities and a redesigned Contact Card that displays colleagues’ pictures and in-depth location information to find and communicate with the right person at the right time.
Bosera has been running its Lync Server 2010 pilot project in conjunction with its existing Office Communications Server 2007 solution. Employees in the pilot project continue to use their existing hardware: Jabra GN2000 USB headsets with the Lync 2010 client on desktop computers, Avaya desk phones, and Polycom IP phones in meeting rooms.
The company plans on rolling out Lync Server 2010 to the entire work force in the future. At that time, the IT staffers will consider using a Survivable Branch Appliance at its regional offices. This third-party device hosts the Microsoft Survivable Branch Appliance software, which helps ensure network access and connection to a PSTN system in case of a network failure at the branch office. Bosera can choose from a number of Survivable Branch Appliance vendors, without being restricted to the company’s PBX supplier.
Benefits
Through use of Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Bosera now has access to enhanced unified communications capabilities. For employees, this means having a choice of intuitive communications options from within familiar business applications for rapid access to colleagues to improve efficiency. For IT staff, this means an easy-to-manage, flexible communications solution that interoperates with other Microsoft communication and collaboration products that the company licenses.
Bosera is planning on deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office Professional 2010 in the future. Both these products interoperate with Lync Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2010, so employees can look forward to an improved collaborative experienced with consistent presence information and click-to-call functionality in both Microsoft Office applications and SharePoint sites.
Reduced Costs
Once it is fully deployed on Lync Server 2010, Bosera is expecting to accelerate the PSTN cost savings that it has enjoyed with Office Communications Server 2007. Because Bosera employees can use Lync Server 2010 to communicate over an IP network, instead of the PSTN, over time, the company expects to reduce phone charges. The more often employees choose Lync Server for voice and conferencing needs, the less the company will spend on PSTN calls. Bosera expects employees will rapidly adopt the user-friendly Lync 2010 client to launch more conference calls from Office applications and SharePoint sites. Lync Server 2010 robust call features, such as transferring calls to multiple devices, or switching devices in mid-call, will be additional incentives for employees to adopt the latest solution. Bosera expects an estimated cost savings of 50 percent compared to its existing PSTN bills.
At the same time, the company saves upfront costs because it’s not required to replace its existing telephony system. Instead, Bosera can run its PBX solution in conjunction with Lync Server 2010 for as long as it meets the company’s needs.
Improved Productivity
Bosera expects Lync Server 2010 to have an impact on the company’s overall productivity by reducing communication gaps and pitfalls that slow down teamwork, such as missed calls and reliance on voice mail and email to find and communicate with colleagues. The most immediate productivity-enhancing benefit for employees is the ability to escalate IM conversations to audio conferences with multiple team members around the country.
Bosera employees are using the integration of social networking features into IM and presence, such as adding pictures and location information and providing details of job positions and personal interests by using the Activity Feed. This adds a personal context and helps bring cohesiveness to a geographically dispersed organization. When Bosera deploys SharePoint Server 2010, employees can use Lync Skill Search, which draws on user profile information in SharePoint Server to locate experts within the organization, reducing the time that it takes to find the right person to join a team or speak to a customer.
“Lync has an appealing user interface, and it’s easy and flexible for users to schedule and attend meetings,” says Linqi, Chief Information Officer at Bosera Asset Management. “Users can use the Lync system in many communication scenarios. The new function of Lync Server 2010 brings us an improved collaboration experience, thereby enhancing the efficiency of our work.”
Streamlined IT Administration
IT staffers are working more productively, using the Control Panel to simplify everyday tasks for system administrators. Because the Control Panel is a web-based administration tool, this capability offers a new level of convenience for IT staffers, who can administer the Lync 2010 environment from anywhere they have connection to the Internet. And IT staffers have greater insight into Lync Server 2010 performance using the Lync Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 which provides a single view of the entire environment, provides real-time status of every server role, and offers trending reports about overall service history.
Also, Bosera is looking forward to taking advantage of the development environment that comes with the Lync 2010 SDK to integrate Lync Server 2010 communication technologies with the company’s customer-facing portal and its intranet. “Lync Server helps to improve the diversity of our IT services and it is easy to deploy and manage,” concludes Linqi. “In the future, we are planning on developing Lync-based solutions such as an organizational chat system and adding new Lync-based features to our call center and Microsoft Office applications.”
Microsoft Lync Server 2010