Customer Solution Case Study
/ Russian Construction Firm Increases Efficiency with Unified Communications Solution
Overview
Country or Region:Russia
Industry:Construction
Customer Profile
Formed in 2006, RZDstroy is a transport infrastructure construction company whose 3,000 employees implement projects and manufacture products for the Russian Railways network.
Business Situation
With 3,000 employees spread across Russia, RZDstroy needed a comprehensive communications solution that would support collaboration and help reduce long-distance phone and travel costs.
Solution
RZDstroy implemented Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to use its conferencing, presence, and desktop sharing capabilities.
Benefits
- Improved communication
- Increased collaboration
- Enhanced project efficiency
- Reduced travel costs
- Smooth deployment
Bohan Sergey Ivanovich, Chief Information Officer, RDZstroy
Founded in 2006, RZDstroy specializes in manufacturing products and managing projects for industrial construction projects, including high-speed railway, residential and administrative buildings, and sports facilities. With 18 construction subsidiaries and 3,000 employees spread across Russia, timely communication is a key element for finishing projects on time and on budget. RZDstroy relied on e-mail and phone calls to communicate important project information, and watched its efficiency and effectiveness decrease as a result. With the help of Microsoft Gold Certified Partner CROC, RZDstroy decided to implement a unified communications solution using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to provide employees with capabilities such as desktop sharing, instant messaging, and presence, to help improve communication, and to increase project efficiency.
Situation
Headquartered in Moscow, Russia, RZDstroy is a nationwide building and industrial contractor that manufactures products and implements projects for railways, roads, and civil construction. The company has 18 construction subsidiaries and more than 3,000 employees engaged in projects across Russia, from Kaliningrad to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
RZDstroy manages highly complex national construction projects, as well as engaging in manufacturing and construction planning and development. To communicate important information about ongoing projects, employees relied mainly on e-mail and phone calls. If they needed to discuss projects in person, they had to travel. Only executives and upper management had access to video-conferencing. The company realized it faced a serious challenge: not only were long-distance and mobile phone costs increasing as employees spent more time on the phone, but employees were becoming less efficient. The company had no voice-mail system, so workers who needed to contact one another had to wait for each other to answer the phone. For time-critical projects required to be on-budget, such inefficiencies were costly.
RZDstroy had deployed both a traditional private-branch exchange (PBX) telephony solution from Ericsson and a voice over IP (VoIP) solution to help employees communicate. For e-mail, it had deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and employees were using the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 messaging and collaboration client. Several departments were usingWindows Live Messenger for instant messaging and presence.
RZDstroy wanted to find an enterprise-wide unified communications solution that would help its employees be more efficient and productive. RZDstroy knew what it needed in the new solution. Bohan Sergey Ivanovich, CIOat RZDstroy, explains, “We wanted to provide a solution that made it easier for employees to contact each other, or to realize when they’d missed each other. We also wanted to provide desktop sharing and audio- and Web-conferencing for all employees, to help us improve project efficiency.”
Solution
To help decide on a solution, RZDstroy contacted CROC, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that provides system integration solutions and services some of the largest companies across Russia. Although RZDstroy considered solutions from Cisco and Avaya, CROC offereda unified communications solution based on Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, and Microsoft Office Communicator for its desktop-sharing and conferencing capabilities. “RZDstroy wantedus to help them find a stable solution to increase business activity and allow their users work more effectively. We chose Office Communications Server because of the tight product integration and suitable cost,” says Stanislav Cherkov, Head of Unified Communicationsat CROC.
In early 2009, RZDstroy deployed a pilot of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for 150 employees, including upper management and executives. It used the pilot to demonstrate and evaluate the desktop sharing, instant messaging, presence, and conferencing capabilities, as well as to train employees about what to expect from the new solution.
In October of 2009, with the help of CROC engineers, RZDstroy began the full migration of Office Communications Server to its computers at its Moscow headquarters. At its main data center, it deployed two front-end servers, two Microsoft SQL Server–based databases, and two load balancers in a high-availability configuration. It also deployed two mediation servers and two AudioCodes Mediant 1000 media gatewaysto integrate Office Communications Server with its existing PBX telephony system. By December 2009, it had deployed the full solution to 2,000 of its employees, who were provided with instant messaging, presence, VoIP, conferencing, and desktop-sharing capabilities.
Employees now use Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 for its instant messaging and click-to-call capabilities. Because they can see presence information for their teammates, they are able to locate and contact them instantly when they need to have questions answered. Using the desktop-sharing capabilities, they can view important documents together and share important information about projects. Employees also use the Web-conferencing capability to hold team meetings and discuss projects. RZDstroy has implemented Auto Attendant, a feature in Exchange Server 2007, for some employees, which provides the ability to receive and transfer calls to anyone in the enterprise based on available presence information. This is especially helpful for project team leads who need to coordinate communication between employees.
RZDstroy also implemented the Federation feature, which employees use to share presence information and send instant messages through Office Communicator to clients outside the organization who also use Office Communications Server. On projects where timing and budgets are both critical, employees can communicate instantly without having to pick up the phone. They also use the desktop sharing feature, which has made the continuing implementation of Office Communications Server and the whole unified communications solution much simpler.
In 2010, RZDstroy and CROC plan to continue efforts to expand unified communications capabilities to all RZDstroy employees by completing the Office Communications Server migration for all the regional offices. They have developed an upgrade plan, which includes deploying Exchange Server 2010, a program that offers more robust Russian language support, to take advantage of more unified communications and voice-mail capabilities.
Benefits
By implementing a unified communications solution based on Microsoft technologies, RZDstroy has improved communication and increased collaboration for its employees, which will help improve project timelines and reduce issues due to lagging communication. The company has also laid the foundation for a next-generation communication platform that will help it reduce travel costs and save valuable time.
Improved Communication
With Office Communications Server, employees have several options for contacting people in the next office or across the country. Because they can use Federation to see presence information both for internal employees and for customers and partners, they know immediately whether a contact is available to answer a question. They can send an instant message, click-to-call through Office Communicator, or pick up the phone to discuss a project. “Instant messaging and presence have increased the efficiency of communication between project teams. It makes the collaboration process much easier,” says Sergey Ivanovich.
Increased Collaboration
With desktop sharing, RZDstroy employees can instantly share important project information to help resolve project issues. Employees are also using Web conferencing to discuss projects, make decisions, and mitigate project risks as a team. Employees also use Federation to increase collaboration with colleagues outside the company. Because people can use Federation to see each other’s presence information, they can schedule project discussions and share information more readily.
RZDstroy implemented Federation with CROC, which enables the two organizations to use desktop sharing and view presence information. “Federation made our communication with RZDstroy more effective,” says Cherkov. “Overall, it makes our helpdesk more efficient, and when RZDstroy has a question about implementation, it’s easier for us to help.”
Enhanced Project Efficiency
RZDstroy wanted to implement a unified communications solution in order to ensure better project efficiency, something it believes it has achieved with the Microsoft solution. “Web conferencing, desktop sharing, click-to-call through Office Communicator—all of these features increased the efficiency of our project teams,” says Sergey Ivanovich. “We spend less time making decisions and more time implementing projects.”
Reduced Travel Costs
Before Office Communications Server was deployed, employees who needed to discuss important project issues in person had to spend time and companyresources to travel to project sites or regional offices, sometimes across the country. Now, employees can instantly set up meetings through Web conferencing, getting answers immediately without spending hours—and money—on planes or trains. “Our ability to have Web conferences with our regional offices saves us the cost of business trips, and also saves us a lot of time,” says Sergey Ivanovich.
Smooth Deployment
RZDstroy believes that implementing a small pilot of Office Communications Server and using it to train and prepare employees for the migration was a real benefit for everyone involved. The executives understood exactly what to expect from the technology, and employees had a chance to view demonstrations. “We recommend using pilots to demonstrate the technology and train the employees, instead of just implementing it for the IT department,” says Sergey Ivanovich. “You save time in training employees. This way, they can start using features immediately after the deployment.”
By deploying a unified communications solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, RZDstroy now has the up-to-date, efficient communications network it needs to increase efficiency and improve collaboration.
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