Situation

• CIM, a leading provider of third party sales and marketing services, employs 320 people in its offices in Toronto, Montreal and New York, and between 1,500 and 2,000 representatives in the field across North America
• CIM's PBX system was coming out of warranty and the company needed to either upgrade or replace it
• CIM's highly-dispersed workforce must be available anytime, anywhere, able to collaborate with office staff and clients at a moment's notice
• CIM had an in-house audio conferencing bridge facility, but this was frequently unable to cope with demand

Approach

• CIM is a long-standing TELUS client and knew about TELUS IP-One Innovation, a virtual IP telephony solution
• After working with TELUS to analyze the total cost of ownership of an IP-One Innovation implementation compared to an in-house solution, CIM decided on IP-One Innovation
• In addition to the expected long term cost savings, CIM was impressed by the features and the ease with which IP-One Innovation could be integrated into the company's intranet.
• TELUS appointed a team to work closely with CIM throughout the implementation
• CIM has since chosen additional TELUS hosting services for its data needs

Business benefits

• IP-One Innovation's powerful Find-Me, Follow-Me feature makes it easy for clients and colleagues to reach employees, wherever they are
• All voice mail, email and fax messages are intuitively managed in the same inbox, saving time and increasing productivity
• The IP-One Innovation Web portal makes it easy for employees to set up their service from anywhere, and manage all their communications
• Audio conferences can be arranged in advance or on the fly, and participants can be invited with just a few mouse clicks
• CIM's long distance costs have been dramatically reduced, as all internal calls are now local
• Instead of using calling cards, field employees can access their IP One Innovation phone numbers and features from any phone, anywhere, via a toll-free number
• Traveling employees can use any phone in any of CIM's offices to access all their features
• Employees can easily move offices, just by taking their phones with them
• Full reporting keeps management informed of all phone usage

Solution

CIM is a leading provider of third party sales and marketing services.  Recognized as one of "Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies", CIM provides integrated solutions to clients that increase their ROI, by building the right strategies and programs that maximize the connection between consumers and sellers at the point of sales influence "The last 3 Feet".  CIM is a full service agency providing: brand strategy, creative, promotions, experiential marketing, sales, merchandising, and information management to some of the most recognized companies and brands in the world.  CIM employs more than 320 people in its offices in Toronto, Montreal and New York, and between 1,500 and 2,000 field representatives.

CIM had always owned and managed a traditional PBX system.  However, the warranty on their latest PBX was expiring and the company needed to either upgrade or replace the system.  CIM began looking at options, with a particular interest in IP telephony.  As a long-standing TELUS client, they knew that TELUS offers IP telephony solutions and asked for more information.

"As we moved forward, TELUS IP-One Innovation looked ideal for our company," says Suril Patel, Senior Manager, IT Engineering at CIM.  "It's a completely hosted and virtual system, so we wouldn't have to manage it.  And because it resides on the large TELUS infrastructure, the availability of ports for audio conferencing would be very good, unlike our existing in-house system, where we'd always fill the ports up".

Working closely with TELUS, CIM analyzed the total cost of ownership of an IP-One Innovation implementation and compared it to the costs of purchasing and managing an in-house solution.  "We came to the decision that it was better to go with TELUS IP-One," says Patel.  But cost of ownership was only one factor in the decision.  CIM was also particularly impressed with the features offered by TELUS IP-One Innovation.

For example, when a caller dials the regular number for an employee who's out of the office and on the road, the Find-Me, Follow-Me feature can ring multiple phones, either simultaneously or in sequence, until it finds the employee.  Alternatively, employees who are out at a single location can use Remote Extension to convert any ordinary phone into an extension on the company's IP-One Innovation network, with all the employee's usual features.  This allows employees to temporarily take over any phone in any CIM office and continue working -or to convert their home phones into IP-One Innovation phones that appear to outsiders as part of the office system.

This is a significant improvement over CIM's previous solution, where representatives were given calling cards for their communications needs.  "That wasn't centrally coordinated," says Patel.  "We had to collate all changes manually every month.  Now, we have a reporting function that automates everything.  There's a huge ease of use benefit."

IP-One Innovation integrates all of a user's voice mail, email and fax messages in a single inbox for simple management and increased productivity - and all features are easily accessed and managed by the user, through the IP-One Innovation Web portal.  Audio conferences are easy to arrange, either in advance or on the fly.  Employees access the feature through the Web portal, inviting participants by simply clicking on relevant names in the directory.

Moves, changes and additions can also be accomplished by in-house staff, without the need to call in costly technicians.  "If we're doing desk moves, people simply take their phones with them,"  explains Patel.  New employees can be accommodated quickly and easily too, by the company's own system administrator.  There's no need for new wiring or complicated programming changes.

Finally, CIM saves considerably on long distance charges.  "All calls on the system are local calls," says Patel.  "We can call Montreal from Toronto, Montreal can call us, a rep in Vancouver can even all another rep in Los Angeles, all at no charge."

Based on the success of their hosted and managed voice system and the benefits it provides for both employees and clients, CIM has decided to move some of its data management to TELUS.  "The IP-One implementation team, project manager and technical people made life very simple for us," says Patel.  "Now we have our voice and our data at TELUS, with some co-located and some co-managed solutions.  It's all going very smoothly."