Case Study:
Hosted Multimedia Contact Centre (MCC)
Implementation for a Large Canadian Provincial
Government
October 2012
Presented by:
Sanjeevan Srikrishnan
Architect
CompuCom
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INTRODUCTIONS
Who is CompuCom?
What is the Hosted Multimedia Contact Centre (MCC) project?
What is CompuCom’s Role in the Hosted Contact Centre project?
CompuCom Confidential
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Who is CompuCom?
CompuCom offers an integrated portfolio…
with a focus on IT Outsourcing
Desktop
Service
Desk
Network
Data Center
Applications
HVDS/VDI
Configuration
Management
Wide Area
Network
Managed Storage
Packaging and
Remediation
Knowledge
Management
Local Area
Network
Image
Management
Asset Management
Problem
Management
Break-Fix
Incident
Management
Level 0, Level 1
and Level 2
Managed Server
.NET
Security
IMAC
Configuration
Standards
Share Point
Unified
Communications
IP Telephony
Managed
Infrastructure
Applications
Managed Data
Center Services
Silverlight
Cloud Readiness
Assessments
QA and Test
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CompuCom’s Business Overview
General Overview Overview
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Founded in 1987
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas
Canadian Headquarters in Mississauga ,
Ontario
Operational Facilities across North America,
with a global reach.
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People and Processes
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11,500 associates
More than 96,000+ certifications
Operational excellence
 Six Sigma, ITIL for service delivery
 ISO 9001:2008 certification
 ISO 20000 certification
 SAS 70 Type II certified compliant
Premier provider of IT Solutions
 IT Services
 Procurement Services
20+ straight years of operating profit
Geographic Presence
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Comprehensive on-site footprint
 More than 5,900 personnel
 Coverage across US & Canada
Remote delivery centers
 2,800 personnel
 SD, Remote Management, Configuration,
Application Development & Projects
Global partner network
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CompuCom’s Strong Market Position
• Great fit
• Size
• Right-shore call center and IT services
• Comprehensive field coverage
• Global alliances
• IT service management leadership
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Our Customers are at the Top of Our
Organization Chart!
Customers
Consultants, Sales & Field
Management
Corporate Services
Sr.
Mgmt.
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Gartner Magic Quadrant 2012
Help Desk Outsourcing
CompuCom
Gartner “Magic Quadrant 2012 for Help Desk Outsourcing, North America,” by William
Maurer, Bryan Britz, Helen Huntley, and David Edward Ackerman. July 24, 2012
Desktop Outsourcing
CompuCom
Gartner “Magic Quadrant 2012 for Desktop Outsourcing Services, North America,” by
William Maurer, David Edward Ackerman, Bryan Britz, and Helen Huntley. July 24, 2012
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Gartner Magic Quadrant 2012
Data Center Outsourcing
CompuCom
Gartner “2012 Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Infrastructure Utility Services,
North America,” by William Maurer, David Edward Ackerman, Bryan Britz, August 29, 2012.
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Recognized Excellence
Industry Accolades
Partner Recognition
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Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader: North America Desktop
Outsourcing & Help Desk Outsourcing Services
consecutively since 2005
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Cisco Partner Summit theater awards for 2011: Enterprise
Partner of the Year (U.S.) & Borderless Networks Partner of
the Year (Canada)
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Promising in Gartner MarketScope: Data Center
Outsourcing, North America 2010
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Gartner Magic Quadrant Challenger: Managed Security
Service Provider, North America 2010
HP Partner in Excellence Awards for 2011: Top U.S. Crossportfolio Growth and U.S. Imaging and Printing Hardware
Partner of the Year
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Microsoft 2011 Platinum Level Operational Excellence
Award: 8th consecutive for Dallas-based & 7th consecutive
for Canadian-based Microsoft Operations teams
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Achievement in Customer Excellence (ACE) Award from
CustomerSat consecutively since 2005
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SERVICE 800 (ServiceMetric, a CompTIA-certified program)
performance consistently above industry benchmark for
help desk services consecutively since 2000
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Microsoft Public Sector State and Local Government (SLG)
Outstanding Customer Service Award 2008 and 2010
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Microsoft Top SLG LAR Growth Partner Award 2010
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Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) Hall of
Fame Lifetime Achievement Award for receiving the
Software Technical Assistance Recognition Award (STAR)
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Large Account Reseller Partner of the Year Award –
Symantec
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Ranked by Computer Dealer News (CDN) in Top 5 Largest
Solution Providers in Canada consecutively since 2008
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InformationWeek 500 listing of the nation’s most innovative
users of business technology consecutively since 2004
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Recognized by Everything Channel’s CRN with a special
2010 Business Transformation award for successfully
migrating from a Value Added Reseller to an IT Outsourcing
services provider
Service Delivery Certifications
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Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Certification
consecutively since 1997
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ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 20000 certified
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SSAE16 Type 2 certified compliant
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What Clients & Analysts Say About Us
• Healthcare Client
“CompuCom was chosen for its track record in excellent customer satisfaction
and responsiveness, which they have demonstrated consistently for us. UHN is a
large, complex, academic hospital that is dependent on information and
communication systems to support care, teaching and research. This partnership
is paramount to our business continuity and ability to innovate at every level.”
• Financial Services Client
“…surpassing our planned cost reductions while providing positive impact upon
the business community.”
• Utility Client
“…delivered year over year cost savings of over 50% ..setting all time high quality
records”
• Forrester Research
“CompuCom has the cost structure, delivery capabilities, and management team
to win and successfully deliver…” – Tom Pohlmann, VP, Information Technology
Research
CompuCom Confidential
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CompuCom’s Core Values…
• Win / Win
• Integrity
• Excellence
• Respect for Individual
… with a sense of urgency!
CompuCom Confidential
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INTRODUCTIONS
Who is CompuCom?
What is the Hosted Multimedia Contact Centre (MCC) project?
What is CompuCom’s Role in the project?
CompuCom Confidential
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What is the Multimedia Contact Centre
(MCC) Project?
Overview of the Multimedia Contact Centre platform
• MCC Contact centers handle over 11 Million calls annually
from businesses and the general public.
• 10 Million of these calls are routed to 1,100 agents
located in 33 contact center locations across the
province.
• MCC platform operates on a base of 2,200 SIP Trunks,
providing local and toll free access for businesses and the
general public to the provincial government.
• MCC platform is designed to provide the government with
a 99.999% overall availability.
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What is the Multimedia Contact Centre
(MCC) Project?
Pre MCC Landscape
● Contact centers across the Provincial Government rely on fragmented and
obsolete legacy technologies and are unable to fulfill the needs of
businesses and individuals for long-term capacity, scalability and
functionality.
● Specifically, they are unable to offer a desired ‘no-wrong-door’ approach
to accessing multi-skilled Agents in a virtualized environment.
● They provide only limited self service opportunities; do not easily facilitate
transfers between contact center Agents; and frequently require Callers to
repeat their ‘story’ over and over again with each hand-off.
● Landscape is based on historical silos, where solutions serve individual
“silo” based needs resulting in long caller wait time for interaction with an
agent.
● Contact centers are run on legacy infrastructure at a high risk of failure
and on technologies that are no longer supported by Suppliers
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What is the Multimedia Contact Centre
(MCC) Project?
Pre MCC Landscape (cont.)
● Contact centers are predominantly offer voice centric services with limited
email and fax interaction.
● Contact centers utilize antiquated standalone PSTN services (i.e. POTS,
ISDN) and offer no opportunities to leverage economies of scale.
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What is the Multimedia Contact Centre
(MCC) Project?
MCC Vision
● Design and Implement a modern Enterprise Contact Centre platform
providing:
 A common hosted platform based virtual infrastructure allowing for the various
contact centers to fulfill the needs of businesses and the general public alike.
 Through business re-engineering efforts, offer callers a ‘no-wrong-door’
experience
 Increase caller self service opportunities through implementation of an enhanced
Voice Activated IVR System providing access to relevant services and information
 Increased segmentation and routing accuracy, ensuring Clients reach the proper
resource the first time, drawing on contact center Agent resources from across
the Enterprise resulting in a reduction in the amount of time callers and their
representatives spend waiting on hold to interact with a contact center Agent
 Modernize ‘caller’ interaction with contact centers by offering modern
communication methods (i.e. email, IM/UC)
 Introduce cost savings by leveraging shared PSTN access through use of SIP and IP
based PSTN access.
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INTRODUCTIONS
Who is CompuCom?
What is the Hosted Multimedia Contact Centre (MCC) project?
What is CompuCom’s Role in the project?
CompuCom Confidential
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What is CompuCom’s role in the project?
Overall Solution Provider offering
 Architectural design, creating a ‘best of breed’ solution that exceeded the
customers expectations.
 Procurement of all hardware and software components within the solution.
 Overall Project Management and Implementation of the designed solution
(incl. management of various sub contactors offering individual
components).
 Integration of the various ‘best of breed’ components of the solution to
create a complete functioning platform.
 Ongoing management, monitoring, maintenance, support and
enhancement of the hosted contact center platform.
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What is CompuCom’s role in the project?
CompuCom Managed Service
Desktop
Service
Desk
Knowledge
Management
Client application
Configuration
Problem
Management
Network
Data Center
IP Telephony
Security
Managed Storage
Level 2, Level 3 and
Level 4 Support
Hands on Site
IVR Management
Managed Server
IP Telephony
Support
Managed
Infrastructure
Applications
Incident
Management
Agent Client
Application
Support
Applications
IP Telephony
Monitoring
NOC Services
ACD/MMR
Management
Managed Data
Center Services
Managed Contact
Centre
Infrastructure
WFM Management
CompuCom Managed Service
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TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
Architectural overview of the MCC platform.
What are the components of the MCC Platform?
Who are the best of breed vendors and what is their role in this
project?
CompuCom Confidential
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Architectural Overview of MCC Platform
POTS (Traditional) Call Path
SIP (VoIP) Call Path
PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone
Network)
General Public
Contact Centre Agent
Telco SIP
(VoIP)
Trunks
Telco
POTS – SIP
Gateway
InGate
SBC
Stack
Voxeo VXML IVRs
Legacy IVR
ComputerTalk ICE MMR
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Architectural Overview of MCC Platform
POTS (Traditional) Call Path
SIP (VoIP) Call Path
2. Call is placed to PSTN
PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone
Network)
3. Call arrives
at Telco and is
converted to
SIP
General Public
Contact Centre Agent
Telco
POTS – SIP
Gateway
4. SIP Call is
Sent to MCC
SBC
Telco SIP
(VoIP)
Trunks
1. Caller Dials MCC Number
Telco/Public Voice Network
7. SBC Forwards
MCC Internal Network
Transfer Request to
MMR Servers, and
MMR Servers Accept
8. SBC Transferrs
Transfer Request
call to MMR Servers
and call is placed in
queue for next
available agent
InGate
SBC
Stack
5. MCC SBC
sends the SIP
Call to VXML
IVRs
6. Caller
chooses to
speak to an
Agent. Call
transfer request
is made to SBC
after MMR
Capacity Check
is Done.
9. When an agent is
available, the caller
(waiting in queue) is
patched in and
conversation begins.
Voxeo VXML IVRs
Legacy IVR
ComputerTalk ICE MMR
Do you have Capacity for a Call?
Yes!
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Architectural Overview of MCC Platform
POINTS TO NOTE
• Incoming callers have a separate SIP Call session to that used by Call Centre Agents.
• Agent Call sessions are maintained through multiple incoming calls.
• As incoming calls traverse the SBC and head to the IVR and MMR components, only
one call path is maintained (calls are SIP Refer Transferred between internal
endpoints)
• Call transfers from the VXML IVRs to the ICE MMRs are done in the sub second
timeframe. During this period callers hear silence (with comfort noise)
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TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
Architectural overview of the MCC platform.
What are the components of the MCC Platform?
Who are the best of breed vendors and what is their role in this
project?
CompuCom Confidential
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MCC Platform Key Telephony Components
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
The MCC Solution is comprised of the following key telephony components:
1.Ingate Session Border Controller (SBC)
● A session border controller (SBC) is a device or application that governs the manner in which
calls, also called sessions, are initiated, conducted and terminated in a VoIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol) network. An SBC can be placed in the communication path between any two parties
engaged in a VoIP session. A common location for a stand-alone SBC is a connection point, called
a border, between a private local area network (LAN) and the Internet.
● In the case of MCC, the InGate SBC acts as an intermediary between the Telecommunications
Company (Telco) SIP infrastructure and the MCC Call Centre Infrastructure. Thereby masking the
Telco VoIP network to the MCC Solution Components, and in turn masking the MCC Solution
Components from the Telco network. As the SBC functions as a B2BUA each side only sees the
SBC as the end UA.
● Within the MCC Platform the InGate SBC also contains the platform’s master dial plan, allowing
for the intelligent routing of calls to the appropriate back end component based on the
incoming SIP URI.
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MCC Platform Key Telephony Components
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
2.Voxeo Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VXML) Interactive Voice
Response (IVR)
● The Voxeo VXML IVR is the primary IVR utilized within the MCC Solution. It utilizes the open
standard VXML Language to define the call treatment that is presented to people calling into the
MCC Platform.
3.Legacy IVR
● The Legacy IVR is utilized within the MCC Solution to provide call treatment to callers leveraging
legacy IVR applications, not re-coded into VXML within the MCC platform.
● The Legacy ICE IVR concept was introduced into the MCC architecture in order to reduce overall
implementation costs by minimizing IVR redevelopment.
4.ComputerTalk ICE Multimedia Routing (MMR) Engine
● The ComputerTalk ICE MMR is utilized within MCC to provide Automated Contact Distribution
(ACD) for the various Ministry Contact Centers.
● Within MCC the ComputerTalk MMR is used to provide ACD functionality for incoming and
outgoing Voice Calls, Emails and Faxes.
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TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
Architectural overview of the MCC platform.
What are the components of the MCC Platform?
Who are the best of breed vendors and what is their role in this
project?
CompuCom Confidential
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Who are the best of breed vendors and what
is their role in this project?
Voxeo Corporation
● Voxeo helps enterprises improve service and lower costs by automating
and connecting their most common phone calls with our Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) or Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. Our hosting and premise
platform solutions, and developer services - powered by VoiceXML and
CCXML - are used by over 200,000 customers and developers to create and
deploy any telephone application they desire.
● Voxeo is the Primary IVR vendor utilized within the MCC platform
Computer Talk
● ComputerTalk is the most successful provider of Contact Center and IVR
solutions in Canada. Founded in 1987, its ice customers span Canada, the
US, and UK. ComputerTalk solutions address the real business challenges
of the end user, and empower them to produce an ROI with measurable
results.
CompuCom Confidential
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Who are the best of breed vendors and what
is their role in this project?
Computer Talk (cont)
● ComputerTalk is the primary sub-contractor/partner to CompuCom on the
MCC project, providing key input aiding with the overall architecture of
the platform.
● ComputerTalk is the primary MMR/ACD Partner utilized within the MCC
Project.
● ComputerTalk is responsible for working with CompuCom on the
development and support of the IVR and MMR Call Flow design and
development.
InGate Systems
● Ingate Systems AB is a Stockholm, Sweden based high-tech company that
designs, develops, manufactures and markets leading data communications
products for trusted Unified Communications. Ingate designed the world’s
first Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-capable firewalls and SIParators (SBC),
products that enable Unified Communications over the Internet.
CompuCom Confidential
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Who are the best of breed vendors and what
is their role in this project?
InGate Systems (cont.)
● Ingate is the primary SBC Partner to CompuCom on the MCC Project.
● Ingate was instrumental in aiding CompuCom with the architecture of the
SBC Platform to meet the stringent needs of the MCC Platform.
CompuCom Confidential
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IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
What were the challenges faced during the implementation of
the MCC Platform and how were they resolved?
CompuCom Confidential
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Challenges and How were they resolved?
Change of Business Requirements
● Over the 1.5 years that MCC has been in the implementation phase, one of
the challenges that were faced was keeping up with the ever changing
business requirements of the various call centers and incorporating those
changes into the platform design.
Change of SIP Trunk Carrier by Government
● Due to various issues, the Government decided to change their SIP Trunking
provider after the platform architecture was finalized.
● This led to several issues:
‒ SIP Interoperability Testing and Validation.
‒ SBC incompatibility with new SIP Trunk Vendor.
‒ Overall architecture review and analysis.
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Challenges and How were they resolved?
Change of SBC platforms
● Change of the SIP Trunking Carrier introduced several issues with the old
SBC Platform.
‒ Old platform was not tested or certified with the new Carrier
‒ Old platform had interoperability issues in operating in B2BUA mode between the
Carrier and the MCC Components.
‒ Old platform did not offer the SIP flexibility required to interoperate with the
new Carrier.
● InGate to the Rescue!
‒ Ingate worked closely with CompuCom to re-architect the SBC Platform to ensure
that it met the needs of the MCC platform and the new Carrier
‒ Ingate participated in a Proof of Concept Implementation to prove the viability
of the new SBC Platform and continuously supported CompuCom through our
implementation activities.
‒ Ingate worked with CompuCom to implement functionality changes to deal with
specific interoperability issues that were identified.
‒ Ingate helped enhance the reporting capabilities of the platform.
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Challenges and How were they resolved?
Corporate Security
● Corporate Security does not understand VoIP or its security appliances
‒ Corporate Security mandates that a firewall be installed in the path of any
external Data Link.
‒ Firewalls are detrimental to VoIP traffic, as they DO NOT know how to deal with
the traffic
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CURRENT STATUS OF MCC
CompuCom Confidential
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Current Status of MCC
• MCC Platform is presently live handling production calls
• Currently in the middle of a Multi Week Go-Live
Schedule
• Platform has improved caller experience significantly
● Positive feedback on surveys to callers into the new platform.
● Call Center ASA and GOS scores confirm caller feedback.
• Platform has improved caller self service by an average
of 10%
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LESSONS LEARNED
CompuCom Confidential
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Lessons Learned
1. In any SIP Implementation/Conversion project, a Lab
environment involving all parties is a MUST.
●
●
Needed for implementation troubleshooting
Needed for ongoing patching activity testing
2. When project planning a SIP
Implementation/Conversion project, incorporate
ample time to do multiple rounds of SIP
interoperability testing at multiple points in the
project.
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Lessons Learned
3. Form a SWAT team to investigate issues.
●
Ensure that All vendors have representation within the team.
4. Well in advance of going Live, ensure that complete
End-to-End production testing is conducted.
●
●
Test all aspects of failover/redundancy
Test unexpected failure scenarios
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QUESTIONS?
CompuCom Confidential
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Thank You!