eircom Microsoft Voice Over IP

Microsoft Ireland Case Study

Voice over IP

2 Case Study — Mircosoft Ireland

Overview Switching to VoIP from eircom has enabled Microsoft Ireland to remove significant costs from its operations, and create further efficiencies by using eircom as a onestop shop for voice services.

Dublin-based Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd. (MIOL), the European headquarters for the global software company, is one of the busiest and most multifunctional campuses in the Microsoft family. Not only is the Sandyford site home to the localisation and development work of the European Development Center, it also handles billions of dollars in revenue every year for Microsoft, processing all transactions from Europe, Middle East and Africa. With 2500 people on-site, including vendors and staff, reliable, high-capacity outbound voice services are vital for company productivity.

Every 2 to 3 years, the company goes to market to seek the best value service for all of its outbound voice calls, where volume has surpassed 6500 calls a month and continues to grow. Like all organisations in the current environment, Microsoft is facing additional pressures to reduce costs, and it specified in its most recent voice RFP that it wanted ideas that could provide further cost savings. After considering its options, Microsoft chose eircom.

“Usually, awarding our outbound voice business is just a rates auction, but we were very interested in how eircom demonstrated that its solution would allow us to remove costs by dropping one of our inbound PRAs, ” said Roger Turner, IT Manager, MIOL. eircom’s proposal included migrating Microsoft’s outbound calls from its existing systems to IP, using eircom business IP Voice.

While competitors were also offering IP installations, Roger said he was attracted by the integrated nature of the offering from eircom, which already provides managed PABX services and inbound voice services for MIOL in Sandyford.

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“There was no issue at all around implementation, it was very smooth once we got the details together that eircom needed, ” Roger recalled. “They appointed a very good project manager, and I have a good telecoms manager here on site who is actually provided by eircom as part of the managed PABX and voice contract we have with them. There were no issues or outages at all.”

Roger Turner Senior IT Manager Ireland / EMEA

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“Good account managers not only save me time, which of course saves money, but also they do take on the role of being a trusted advisor to me in their area of specialty. This is a commercial world, and like a lot of people I have to do the same or more this year with fewer resources. It’s vital to find people who are good partners to work with, and that’s what we get from eircom.”

Roger Turner Senior IT Manager Ireland / EMEA

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Peace of mind with eircom “I felt we would get more from working with eircom. It reduces the number of providers I need to deal with — if I have any issue regarding voice, it’s just my eircom account manager I need to ring, ” Roger said.

“Once the economics were sound, and eircom was providing pricing on a par with competitors, what tipped it for me was having one person to talk to, plus the additional benefit of realising savings by dropping the PRA. I like that eircom was offering a holistic approach. ”

Excellent call quality to support world-class business In addition to realising the anticipated cost savings, Microsoft has enjoyed excellent call quality in its transition to VoIP. “I have had zero complaints about call quality -- and given the extremely high standards of my user base, if there had been any drop in quality, they would have let me know immediately, ” Roger said. “I’ve had no notifications at all of quality concerns regarding our move to VoIP. ” MIOL is now in the process of moving its inbound voice to VoIP to drive more value from its network investment. Roger said that consolidating its voice services with eircom, especially in light of the excellent account management eircom provides, was the right move for Microsoft. He particularly points to his account manager’s proactivity, eagerness to understand his business and business priorities, and initiative in areas like illustrating with call modeling the anticipated savings for MIOL. “That kind of proactivity isn’t always the case with communications companies -- but it makes a big difference when you have a good account manager, ” he notes. “Good account managers not only save me time, which of course saves money, but also they do take on the role of being a trusted advisor to me in their area of specialty. This is a commercial world, and like a lot of people I have to do the same or more this year with fewer resources. It’s vital to find people who are good partners to work with, and that’s what we get from eircom.”

Overview eircom solution at a glance

• Working with the Microsoft IT team, eircom specialists migrated Microsoft’s outbound voice calls to an IP infrastructure, leveraging Microsoft’s existing eircom IP MPLS connection.

• Installation of additional IP lines and migration onto the IP infrastructure was completed in around 18 weeks, and switch over was transparent to end users.

• Outbound calls are now brought onto the eircom business IP network at the Sandyford node and terminated on the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

• Call modeling in advance demonstrated to Microsoft that it could achieve cost savings of around 15% annually, and Microsoft is on course to meet or exceed these targets.

Get in touch To find out how eircom Voice over IP can benefit your business, please contact your eircom Account Manager. www.eircomforbusiness.ie