Document management specialist I.R.I.S Group is recognised as an innovator in its own field. It now has a unified communications solution to match its status – Avaya IP Office. Easy to manage and easy to use, IP Office has helped I.R.I.S. drive productivity and enhance international collaboration.
Philippe De Zutter, Facilities Manager at I.R.I.S Solution & Expert, had been looking for an opportunity to change his communication system. “The existing infrastructure was expensive to maintain and unresponsive to quick change requests,” he recalls. “Even for simple tasks like adding a new user or switching to summer time, we had to ask our service provider.”
So he was delighted when the company landed a major contact centre contract – which provided the perfect opportunity to test unified communications. “We needed to boost our telephony and communication resources but this particular project and the advanced functionalities that our customer was demanding provided the final trigger”, Philippe confirms.
Demanding requirements
I.R.I.S. drew up a demanding specification: detailed statistics, multi-site integration, access to all communication functions from any device, easy to configure project-based virtual collaboration spaces, and smooth routing of all messages to any part of the world.
“We wanted an efficient, functionally rich, easily scalable solution which would also be easy to configure, manage and maintain. Our sales people, project leaders and consultants need to have full and easy access to their information and applications wherever they work. Our call centre agents and support staff must be contactable on their mobile devices while they are away or at home. And every intervention or task must be traced and fully documented: where the call was answered, what time of day or night, call duration, wait time, intervention delay…”
After careful review of the various offerings, the Avaya IP Office solution proposed by Avaya partner be.data clearly emerged as the one that best met I.R.I.S.’ demands.
Successful test
I.R.I.S went for a phased implementation. “We needed to act fast in order to implement the call centre, but we also wanted to reduce the risks and make sure we had made the right choice. Our approach was both careful and punchy” Philippe states. The Avaya solution exceeded expectations. “This real-life test was a complete success. The system performed perfectly, meeting all the requirements of our customer. It was also user-friendly enough to allow us to roll it out and manage it by ourselves. We provisioned it as we wanted. We even discovered additional features that we were able to deliver to our customer as a bonus”.
I.R.I.S. therefore decided to switch its entire communication infrastructure to the Avaya solution. “The be.data team went through a careful and in-depth preparation phase, but the switchover itself happened over a single weekend. The management had made it clear: there shouldn’t be any disruption, however small, in the day-to-day working environment of the employees”. That has meant the role of be.data is now minimal. “95 percent of daily operations can be managed internally. For the remaining 5 percent – functions we rarely use – we only refer to the experts to check if we did it right. Adds and changes are no-brainers. The system is so easy to use, configure and manage that we were able to implement a second call centre project all by ourselves.”
An expanding network
After the successful first phase in Belgium to 157 users, I.R.I.S. decided to expand the system to its Luxemburg subsidiary (55 users). The French offices will follow in the near future, so that soon all I.R.I.S. employees will have access to the same consistent infrastructure and functionality. This will dramatically reduce call costs – particularly in France: the embedded intelligence allows the system to automatically identify the most cost-efficient route. The expansion will also make the infrastructure more robust: each IP Office system acts as back-up for the other ones.
Calls, as you want them
User functionality is also much improved. Users can set and adapt preferences at any time, via their terminal (office phone, soft phone, smartphone) or One-X Portal for IP Office. They can also instantly decide whether to pick up a call or to switch to the call-back mode in order to minimise the costs. The system will then select the appropriate channel, calling the user on his/her smartphone, home phone or even dial the number of the room extension if he/she is staying in a hotel. “Each user can customise the call setup to suit them. This ensures optimal telephony use, whatever the circumstances.”
Further extensions
As a next step, I.R.I.S. is considering videoconferencing – which would offer further productivity benefits. I.R.I.S. employees and managers would be able to conduct long-distance meetings more efficiently, even if they are on the move, via mobile devices.
But even without video, communications costs have fallen, thanks to the rich conference call potential of the Avaya IP Office solution. “Conferences are now totally free,” Philippe acknowledges: “no need for our employees to get the permission of their manager or supervisor anymore.” As a result, the number of conference calls has rocketed – especially amongst home workers.
Overall, I.R.I.S. now enjoys a high performance unified communications solution, closely integrated with its daily business tools. “The Avaya IP Office solution has had a major impact on productivity and on the efficiency of our company processes,” Philippe concludes. “Our after-sales service has improved. The IP Office solution clearly is a powerful tool for our growth strategy.”
