Customer Solution Case Study
/ Leading Headset Maker Adopts Unified Communications, Saves $1.2 Million Annually
Overview
Country or Region:Denmark
Industry:Manufacturing—High tech and electronics
Customer Profile
Jabra®develops, manufactures, and markets wired and wireless headsets. The company is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has 1,000 employees.
Business Situation
To improve collaboration and reduce costs, Jabra sought a unified communications solution for internal and external meetings, enterprise-grade instant messaging, companywide presence information, and all internal and external telephony.
Solution
The company chose a unified communications solution from Microsoft. Today, it uses Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to support employees around the globe.
Benefits
- Three-month return on investment
- Improved productivity and collaboration
- Ease of deployment
- Improved ability to compete
Tom Zachariassen, Chief Financial Officer, Jabra
To improve collaboration and reduce costs, headset manufacturer Jabra sought to consolidate on a single, unified communications environment. The company chose Microsoft software and now uses Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to support internal voice traffic, online meetings and training, large-scale external presentations, instant messaging and presence, and external calls. After deploying the unified communications environment, Jabra reduced its annual telecom costs by US$1.2 million, improved employee productivity and collaboration, and increased its ability to compete.
Situation
Jabra, a brand by GN Netcom A/S, subsidiary of Denmark-based GN Store Nord, is one of the world’s fastest growing suppliers of hands-free communication solutions and is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network. The company develops, manufactures, and markets wireless headsets for mobile users and wireless and corded headsets for office and contact center environments. Jabra also supplies OEM devices for a number of PC, PDA, and mobile phone manufacturers.
With roughly 1,000 employees and 15 subsidiaries around the world, Jabra faces the same communication challenges as most global enterprises—needs that, in the past, were at best being partially met through a mix of standalone solutions. All offices relied on traditional public branch exchanges (PBXs) and public switched telephone network (PSTN) lines for internal and external telephony, resulting in millions of dollars in annual telecom costs. External teleconferencing services used by the company were expensive, yet they presented quality and connectivity issues because traffic traveled beyond the company’s internal network. Employees had no means of desktop-sharing and used consumer-grade instant messaging (IM) services, which presented security risks and failed to provide companywide presence information. Aging contact center software provided limited functionality, reporting, and flexibility in call routing.
To improve collaboration and reduce costs, Jabra sought to consolidate on a single, unified communications environment. In 2009, it began to look for a solution that could utilize its internal network to support internal online meetings and training, large-scale external online meetings and presentations, enterprise-grade messaging and presence, and all telephony, including support for mobile clients and the company’s contact center needs. Jabra also had a somewhat more unique motivation: as a major headset provider who knows that “devices create experiences,” the company needed a state-of-the-art unified communications environment to get the most out of—and continue to drive innovation within—its own products.
Solution
Jabra considered solutions from several vendors, evaluating them against criteria that included ease of deployment, synergy with the company’s existing IT infrastructure, and integration with the business applications used by employees. “We wanted the best, most complete solution,” says JanickNavne, Manager of Global IT Operations at Jabra. “Given that we’re a Microsoft IT shop and that our employees rely heavily on tools such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint Server, a solution from Microsoft clearly made the most sense.”
In planning for deployment, Jabra had several considerations. The solution had to support all employees, including remote workers and 20 offices around the globe. Jabra also knew that it wanted to implement federation, so that employees could communicate and collaborate with their counterparts at partner companies as easily as with one another. Finally, Jabra knew that each employee would need a headset designed for the primary environment in which he or she worked—for example, in an open environment such as a contact center, a private office, or a mobile setting.
In April 2009, Jabra deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 to provide instant messaging, enterprisewide presence information, and internal video and voice conferencing. The company also took the opportunity to implement federation with key partners such as Microsoft, HP, and Dell.
Six months later, Jabra deployed Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 and the Conferencing Add-In for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, adding the capability for employees to easily schedule and conduct online meetings. The company also deployed new video and voice equipment in its headquarters and larger remote offices, including round-table Videoconferencing devices that automatically track the active speaker in a room. Jabra started to use its new unified communications environment to support large-scale presentations to external participants.
In mid-2010, Jabra upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 running on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system, and to the Microsoft Lync 2010 client on all desktops. The two-week effort resulted in improved integration with Microsoft desktop products (such as how Microsoft Outlook shows presence information for people), improved voice and video quality, and a more fluid and intuitive experience when managing calls, scheduling online meetings, and taking actions, such as inviting additional participants to an impromptu meeting or call.
Today, Jabra uses Lync Server 2010 to support companywide internal voice traffic, online meetings, enterprise-grade instant messaging, large-scale external presentations, and online training. The company has also expended federation to include more than 120 business partners, so that employees can communicate with them as easily as they can with each other.
Usage statistics collected by Jabra through built-in Lync Server 2010 reports show how heavily employees rely on its capabilities. “Last week alone, our unified communications infrastructure supported 677 online meetings with a total duration of 30,282 minutes,” says Thomas BaekkeOlesen, System Administrator at Jabra. “During the same week, employees held 32,584 peer-to-peer sessions, of which approximately 65 percent were IM conversations and 35 percent were voice calls.”
The company also uses Lync Server 2010 together with its existing telephony system to support inbound and outbound external calls at some of its larger offices, an intermediate step in its plans to move from traditional PSTN lines and PBXs to native session initiation protocol (SIP) trunks for all external calls. “Lync Server 2010 uses direct SIP to connect to Cisco Call Manager, which then routes the voice traffic over traditional PSTN lines,” says Olesen. “This approach has enabled us to familiarize employees with using Lync 2010 for external calls and to deliver the associated benefits as we wait for SIP trunks to be provisioned and existing contracts to expire.”
As part of the rollout, Jabra also made sure that each employee had the right headset. For example:
- People who work at a desk all day—such as contact center representatives—use the Jabra Biz™ 2400, a corded headset.
- People who work in offices use the Jabra PRO™ 9400 series, a wireless headset that enables them to walk around the office or down the hall. It supports up to three-way connectivity to unite the employee’s desk phone, Lync 2010 client, and mobile phone.
- Highly mobile employees use the Jabra GO™ 6400 series, a Bluetooth headset with up to three-way connectivity and advanced noise-cancelling technology for noisy environments.
Bill Orlansky, Director of Strategic Alliances for North America at Jabra, explains what to consider when choosing a headset. “The first thing to determine is what the headset needs to connect to—an office desk phone, Lync 2010 running on a PC, a mobile phone, or a combination thereof,” he says. “Another consideration is the environment and how noisy it is. Based on those factors, customers can choose a product line and then select the right product variant within that line based on whether they need a dual-earpiece headset to block ambient noise, the right microphone for noise cancellation, and so on. Customers running Lync Server should consider headsets certified as Optimized for Microsoft Lync, which means that they’re designed and tested to provide a high-quality user experience, rich audio and video, and a lower total cost of ownership.” (More information on devices certified as Optimized for Microsoft Lync can be found at
Jabra is now sourcing a new contact center solution to run on Lync Server 2010. The company expects to make a decision in mid-May 2012 and to finish implementation by the end of the year. “There are numerous contact center solutions designed to work with Lync Server, and we’re very pleased with the range of available options,” says Navne. “We envision several benefits from such a solution, including useful new functionality, improved integration with contact center applications, reduced call handle times, improved reporting, lower telecom costs, and more.”
Benefits
By adopting a unified communications infrastructure based on Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Jabra has reduced its annual telecom costs by more than US$1 million per year. Employees have new ways to communicate and collaborate with each other and with business partners, enabling them to work more productively and accelerate decision-making. The company accomplished all of this for roughly $225,000, including the costs for headsets and labor, leading to a three-month return on investment. “The business case for a unified communications environment was almost too good to be true—and it proved to be even better than that,” says Tom Zachariassen, Chief Financial Officer at Jabra.
Three-Month Return on Investment
Jabra implemented its unified communications environment for less than $225,000, including new servers, new conferencing equipment, new headsets, and total labor costs. The company reduced its costs by $1.2 million per year—equal to about 0.3 percent of revenues or 1 percent of operational expenditures. “We realized a full return on investment in less than three months through reduced telecom and conferencing costs alone,” says Navne. “As we transition from current PSTN providers to a native SIP infrastructure, we expect to realize an additional 30 to 35 percent savings.”
Improved Productivity and Collaboration
The company is realizing an additional return on its investment in other ways, such as through reduced travel costs and improved employee productivity and collaboration. Orlansky, who uses a Jabra SPEAK™ 410 USB speakerphone and Jabra PRO headset for voice calls, can speak to how the company’s unified communications environment has benefited him personally.
“The way presence information and other capabilities of Lync Server are exposed within Microsoft Office 2010 applications makes collaboration a breeze,” he says. “For example, when viewing an email message, I can see whether the sender and others on the thread are online and available—and then right-click on a name to place a call, send an IM, or see when someone will be free.”
Orlansky is also a frequent user of online meetings, both with other Jabra employees and with the many business partners he manages. “Lync Server not only saves me time, but it also helps accelerate decision-making and project delivery,” he says. “For example, I can share my desktop during a Lync call to review creative content for a new marketing campaign in real time.”
Orlansky is also traveling less, which leaves him with more productive time while helping Jabra reduce costs. “I travel about half as much as I used to, which both saves the company money and leaves me more time to spend with family,” he says. “When I do travel, my phone number follows me wherever I go. No matter where I am, the only thing I need to be fully productive is an Internet connection.”
Ease of Deployment
Jabra’s deployment of a unified communications environment—from initial installation of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to date—has required only 320 hours of technical effort, with all work done by internal IT resources. Another 260 hours were spent on employee communication and training, bringing the total labor to implement the solution to 580 hours.
“Implementation was simple and straightforward, and employee adoption was virtually immediate,” says Navne. “Within a month of its deployment, employees rated our new unified communications infrastructure as one of the top three most important and most used IT services globally. The only issue we encountered was a 250-participant limit for online meetings with Office Communications Server 2007, but that’s not a problem today because Lync Server 2010 supports 1,000 participants.”
Improved Ability to Compete
To Jabra, the benefits of its unified communications environment extend well beyond increased productivity and lower costs. “Companies are embracing unified communications at a rapid pace, which provides a huge opportunity for us as a headset manufacturer—and for our competition as well,” says Orlansky. “By running Lync Server 2010, we’re able to deliver new products more quickly and effectively, which will help us compete. We’re also able to better communicate the benefits of a complete unified communications solution—from Lync Server 2010 in the data center to using the right headsets—and understand any potential issues that customers might face.”
Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ushers in a new connected user experience that transforms every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative, and engaging; and that is accessible from anywhere. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful, with a highly secure and reliable communications system that works with existing tools and systems for easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility.
For more information about Microsoft Lync Server 2010, go to: