Microsoft Lync Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

Testing Firm Improves Productivity by 30 Percent with Communications Upgrade

OverviewCountry or Region: ChinaIndustry: High tech and electronics manufacturing

Customer ProfileSporton International is a leading provider of testing and certification services to high-tech manufacturers. Based in Taipei, Taiwan, it has 12 locations and revenues of U.S.$43 million.

Business SituationSporton wanted to provide an enterprise voice solution to help employees be more productive and communicate more efficiently, and to help it reduce telephony costs.

SolutionSporton deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to replace its aging PBX systems and provide enterprise voice across the organization.

Benefits Reduced costs Improved productivity by 30 percent

“We expect that employees will save about 30 percent of their daily time by using the collaborative features in Lync 2010. That is valuable time they can use to do more testing or help more customers.”

David Feng, IT Director, Sporton International

Sporton International provides testing and certification services to major hardware and mobile communications companies. Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, Sporton employs 450 people across 12 locations in three countries. In the past, the company relied on multiple providers for conferencing and telephony solutions that did not integrate with its email and instant messaging solutions from Microsoft. It wanted to provide a more robust, cost-effective solution to help employees work together and with customers around the world. In March 2010, Sporton upgraded its communications solution to Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide enterprise voice and ad hoc collaboration and online meeting capabilities. Sporton found that the new solution would help it greatly reduce costs and boost employee productivity by as much as 30 percent.

SituationSporton International provides product certification for mobile device manufacturers around the world. The company was ranked as a Forbes 200 “Best Under a Billion” company in the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 1986 and based in Taipei, Taiwan, it currently has 450 employees and 12 branch offices, including large branch offices in China and Korea, and maintains two main data centers, one in Taipei, and the other in nearby Linkou.

Teams from across the company work together to provide certification services for businesses around the world, making efficient, cost-effective communication critical. For email, Sporton has deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. To provide more instant communication between teams and departments, the company deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. All employees had access to presence, instant messaging (IM), and desktop-sharing capabilities, as well as internal audio conferencing. The organization implemented federation with partners and customers, so employees can see presence and calendar information for federated colleagues and easily connect with them through IM and audio conferencing calls. Sporton also deployed Exchange Unified Messaging so employees could receive and manage both voice mail and email messages through the Microsoft Office Outlook messaging and collaboration client.

To provide voice, Sporton relied on a private-branch exchange (PBX) telephony system at each office location, and employees used traditional analog desk

phones. It also uses the phone system as a public address (PA) system to make announcements. The engineering and sales teams especially relied on audio and web conferencing to work with each other and with customers to confirm testing procedures and discuss results. For audio conferencing they relied on a service offered by their telecom provider. For web conferencing, employees used WebEx or other web conferencing solutions selected by their departments.

While the company appreciated the instant communication capabilities and efficiencies it gained from using Office Communications Server, it believed that deploying an enterprise voice solution in place of its aging PBX systems could help it boost productivity and also help it reduce the costs for voice and conferencing. “Our business is expanding more every year, and communication costs keep getting higher,” says David Feng, IT Director at Sporton International. “We needed a solution that would help us reduce costs while also maintaining efficient communication.”

SolutionIn March 2010, Sporton deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide enterprise voice across the organization. Lync Server provides enhanced versions of the communications capabilities provided by Office Communications Server 2007 R2—presence, instant messaging, robust conferencing, and enterprise voice—as well as improvements in topology, deployment, and management tools. The company has deployed the full solution for all 450 of its employees.

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Sporton deployed Lync Server at both of its data centers to provide failover in case of an outage. It used the Topology Builder tool for Lync Server to design its topology and configuration settings before beginning deployment. At one location, it deployed two front-end servers with collocated Mediation Servers, as well as a SQL Server-based back-end server and NET gateway; at a second location, it deployed a standard Lync Server with one NET gateway. It used Microsoft Hyper-V Server virtualization technology to virtualize its Mediation and SQL Server database servers. The firm also deployed a NET Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) at one of its branch offices. The SBA is based on cost-effective media gateways hosting the Microsoft Survivable Branch Appliance software package. The SBA provides a network connection and a backup public switched telephone network (PSTN) connection in the event of wide area network (WAN) failure. Sporton plans to deploy SBAs at its remaining branch offices to provide a redundant voice connection in the case of a network outage.

For offices with limited bandwidth, Sporton is using Call Admission Control within Lync Server to manage bandwidth constraints. “Even with internal communication, we can have problems with quality at some locations,” explains Feng. “With Call Admission Control, we have a mechanism to prevent people from using bandwidth connections that are too low.” Sporton is also building alternative paths so that when employees make calls and bandwidth is too low, the calls will be routed to the Internet.

For its employees, Sporton is currently evaluating voice hardware designed

specifically for use with Lync Server to replace traditional desk phones, including the Polycom CX600 IP desk phone, which provides directory search and presence information, or a Plantronics Voyager PRO headset they can use to place and manage calls and conferences through the Lync client on the desktop. For conference rooms, the company is also considering the Polycom CX3000 IP conference phone, which also provides directory search, presence information, and extended conferencing capabilities, and the Polycom CX5000 for videoconferencing. As employees adopt the IP desk phones, it will retire its traditional desk phones. Sporton transferred its response groups from its PBX to the Response Group Service in Lync Server, which it can use to configure workflows that route and queue incoming calls to the proper channels. Because it no longer has a cost associated with configuring and maintaining response groups, it plans to add more to its system. The company plans to develop a dedicated PA system as well, which means it can fully retire its PBX systems.

To make communications widely available, Sporton has set up Lync Server 2010 to work together with Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft Office 2010, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Employees have the same user experience across all the products: they can view their colleagues’ presence information, and with one click they can easily start a chat session or place a call. Sporton also plans to use Lync application programming interfaces (APIs) to develop an internal application that extends presence, instant messaging, and click-to-call capabilities into its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

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“We plan to open a new office every year or eighteen months. For each one, we expect to save at least U.S.$30,000 by deploying Lync enterprise voice and an SBA instead of a PBX.”

David Feng, IT Director, Sporton International

People in the engineering and sales departments especially are using the ad hoc collaboration and online meeting capabilities in Lync Server to connect with customers, to the extent that Sporton retired its telecom’s audio and video conferencing services. Other departments are abandoning their current web conferencing solutions in favor of using Lync. The company is also testing the Microsoft HD LifeCam Cinema, so it can provide video conferencing capabilities for all employees to use at their desks.

Using the new capabilities in the Lync desktop client, employees can view enhanced presence information for colleagues. Using the Activity Feed, they can provide a brief description of what they are working on each day, and with Location, they can let people know their whereabouts, making it easier for coworkers to locate them. New employees and old employees alike are using the Rich Contact Card feature to help familiarize themselves with coworkers outside their departments. Rich Contact Cards display pictures that have been loaded into the Active Directory service, and they also show a person’s manager and direct reports. People can also use Skill Search to find subject matter experts in other departments more easily.

With the deployment of enterprise voice across the organization, the IT team has more responsibility to ensure that voice service is always available. The team uses Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 with the Lync Management pack for monitoring and alerts, in addition to the new web-based control panel for

Lync Server. With the web-based control panel, the IT team can manage Lync Server from anywhere on the corporate network. “System Center Operations Manager gave us the confidence to take over the management of voice communications from the telephony group,” says Feng. “It provides the comprehensive monitoring and reporting we needed to address issues quickly before operations are affected.”

BenefitsBy deploying Lync Server 2010, Sporton can maximize its investment in its communication infrastructure and extend enterprise voice across the organization, while helping to improve employee productivity and reduce costs.

Reduced CostsBy retiring its PBX systems, Sporton has greatly reduced its daily communication costs between offices—in some cases to $0—because people are using Lync as their primary form of communication. As the business expands, it expects to see even larger cost savings. “We plan to open a new office every year. For each one, we expect to save at least [U.S.]$30,000 by deploying Lync enterprise voice and an SBA instead of a PBX,” says Feng.

Sporton also experienced immediate cost reduction by retiring the audio conferencing solution provided by its telecom. “We will save $15,000 a year using Lync dial-in conferencing,” says Feng. The ad hoc collaboration and online meeting capabilities in Lync will also help Sporton save money on travel expenses, because

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“With enterprise voice in Lync, our sales teams can do business from anywhere and engage with customers more frequently. We expect to see as much as a 10 percent increase in revenue because of that quick response.”

David Feng, IT Director, Sporton International

the company expects to reduce employee travel overall by 15 percent.

Sporton will also save on response group configuration. With its PBX solution, it had to pay to modify response groups. This was costly and led Sporton to only use them when absolutely necessary. With Lync, Sporton can easily configure response groups at no cost, so Sporton plans to use them more often. “We will use response groups to route customers to the right contacts,” says Feng. “It a great benefit to the business.”

Increased Employee Productivity by 30 Percent By connecting Lync capabilities such as presence, instant messaging, and voice with other Microsoft applications such as Office and SharePoint, Sporton has helped boost productivity for its employees. Feng explains, “We expect that employees will save about 30 percent of their daily time by using the collaborative features in Lync 2010. That is valuable time they can use to do more testing or help more customers.” For sales and customer service, the company says that call response times are about 40 percent faster. Because sales

personnel can use enterprise voice

anywhere, anytime, they can respond more quickly to customer requests for information. “In the past, sales people would get messages from customers in the evening or over the weekend, and they would have to wait until the next day or Monday to call a customer,” says Feng. “With enterprise voice in Lync, our sales teams can do business from anywhere and engage with customers more frequently. We expect to see as much as a 10 percent increase in revenue because of that quick response.”

Microsoft Lync Server 2010Microsoft 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 solution 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:www.microsoft.com/lync

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about products and services, call or visit the website at:

For more information about Sporton International Inc. products and services, call +866-2-2696-2468 or visit the website at: www.sporton.com.tw

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published November 2010

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Sporton products and services, call +866-2-2696-2468 or visit the website at: www.sporton.com.tw

For more information about NET products and services, call (800) 234-4638 or visit the website at: www.net.com

For more information about Plantronics products and services, call (800) Plantronics or visit the website at: www.plantronics.com

For more information about Polycom products and services, call (800) Polycom or visit the website at: www.polycom.com

Software and Services Microsoft Office− Microsoft Office 2010− Microsoft Lync 2010

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Lync Server 2010− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010− Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

− Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

Hardware Polycom CX600 and CX3000 IP phones Polycom CX5000 videoconferencing

phone NET VX Series Media Gateway Plantronics Voyager PRO headset

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