Lync 2013 Customer
Solution Case Study
“Wet Infrastructure” Firm Uses Collaboration Solution
to Achieve Competitive Edge
Company: MWH Global
Website: www.mwhglobal.com
Company Size: 8,000 employees
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Heavy and civil engineering
construction
Company Profile
MWH Global provides engineering,
construction, and management services for
some of the largest “wet infrastructure”
projects in the world—from strategy and
planning to development and delivery of
technical solutions.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft Lync Server 2013
− Microsoft Lync Server 2010
− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
 Microsoft Office 365
− Microsoft Exchange Online
 Yammer
“With Microsoft Lync Server, the MWH workforce
collaborates without borders. We’re driving business
efficiencies across 35 countries on six continents, using
Microsoft collaboration and social technologies to
differentiate MWH in the marketplace.”
David Neitz, CIO, MWH Global
MWH Global believes that drawing on the collective expertise of
its workforce is critical to business success, so the company
developed a comprehensive collaboration strategy. To achieve its
vision, MWH chose Microsoft Lync Server and Yammer,
complementing its existing Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange
environment. Now employees can share innovative ideas in real
time to improve service and give the company a competitive
edge in project bidding.
Business Needs
“Microsoft Lync Server is fantastic at
connecting people and giving them a
forum to create and discuss ideas. That
kind of collaboration has led to
innovations that drive our business.”
Dave Roberts, Regional IT Director for Europe,
Middle East, and Africa, MWH Global
For more information about Microsoft Lync
Server 2013, go to:
www.microsoft.com/lync
“Wet infrastructure” encompasses
everything from public water distribution
to hydropower and environmental
reclamation. With roots extending back to
1820, MWH Global is a world leader in
water-related projects. To maintain its
competitive edge, the company leadership
passionately believes that it must foster
innovation by helping its nearly 8,000
employees share their talent and
experience.
MWH has embraced this concept for quite
some time by regularly upgrading its
collaborative solutions. For example, a few
years ago it switched from the IBM Lotus
Domino social business application to the
Microsoft Exchange enterprise messaging
and collaboration solution and from the
IBM Lotus SameTime social
communications offering to Microsoft
Office Communications Server.
By 2011, MWH had an integrated global
working strategy that calls for keeping
collaborative processes and tools as simple
and universally available as possible. To that
end, MWH sought an upgraded solution
that would offer employees cost-effective
and wide-ranging communication and
collaboration technology.
Solution
In late 2011, as a first step toward realizing
its integrated global working strategy,
MWH Global chose Microsoft Lync Server
2010 as a unified communications solution
for presence, instant messaging, voice,
video, and desktop sharing. “We wanted a
solution that tightly integrated all these
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. ©2013 Microsoft Corporation.
collaboration features,” says Dave Neitz,
Chief Information Officer of MWH Global.
“We looked at various competitors,
including Cisco, but Lync was the natural
choice for interoperability.”
Specifically, Neitz notes that Lync Server
complemented the company’s Microsoft
Exchange environment for email and
unified messaging, including voice mail
delivered to email inboxes. Lync also fits
well with the IT team’s experience with
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for team
sites—another key component of the
company’s collaboration strategy.
By January 2012, after only seven weeks,
MWH had deployed Lync 2010 worldwide,
and employees used 2 million audio
minutes between February and September.
A few months later, with high performance
in mind, MWH chose to upgrade to
Microsoft Lync Server 2013, and the
company expects to fully deploy it by mid2013.
Separately, as part of an evolving strategy
to save on future IT costs, MWH has begun
to migrate from Exchange Server to
Microsoft Exchange Online.
Other features of Lync Server 2013 that
especially interest MWH include improved
support for mobile devices and federation
with outside organizations, better
interoperability with SharePoint, and
upcoming integration with the Yammer
enterprise social network. Says Neitz, “We
know that combining Lync and Yammer
capabilities will firmly establish our realtime collaboration model.”
Dave Roberts is the Regional IT Director for
Europe, Middle East, and Africa at MWH
Global. He says, “Each upgrade—from
Notes to Exchange Server, from SameTime
to Office Communications Server, and from
there to Lync 2010, Lync 2013, and
Exchange Online—has been a big leap
forward in our ability to collaborate.”
Putting this observation into a larger
context, he notes that the move to
Exchange Online is a natural progression of
the company’s evolving IT service model.
“It’s a commoditization of a service that
allows us to flexibly deliver email to our
organization, even as the number of users
may change.”
Benefits
By using Lync, Yammer, and SharePoint
Server as part of a comprehensive
collaboration solution, MWH Global is able
to foster creativity within and across
organizational boundaries. Consequently, it
is a more efficient, competitive company
that better serves its global customers and
community.
Collaboration That Crosses Borders
MWH uses the solution to provide
“collaboration without borders” so that
employees can work across departmental
boundaries—from nearly any location, with
anyone else, and using an array of devices.
The result is improved agility, customer
responsiveness, and productivity. Neitz
recounts a colleague’s anecdote: “I’m using
a tablet device with Lync paired to a
Bluetooth keyboard on a high-speed train
in England while talking to someone in
Pune, India, 5,000 miles away. These
collaboration tools are fantastic!”
Similarly, with federation and external
SharePoint team sites, the easy-access and
productivity benefits extend beyond
corporate borders. “For large and jointventure projects, bringing outside
engineers and suppliers into the
conversation has become indispensable—
and using SharePoint is so much more
efficient than phone calls and email,” says
Neitz.
Collaboration That Sparks Innovation
A great idea can occur to employees
anytime, and MWH believes they should
seize that moment to explore it. Says
Roberts, “It starts as a spark in one person’s
imagination. And by bouncing it off
colleagues, it can grow into a well-thoughtout concept.” From there, employees may
want more collaborative input, which is
where social networking comes in. “With
Yammer, the original idea can grow into a
truly innovative plan that makes the
business run better,” notes Roberts.
“Yammer is the perfect forum for evolving
ideas at the group level.”
He adds that the monetary value of using
collaborative technology to encourage
innovation is difficult to quantify, but “we
believe it ultimately differentiates us when
we bid against our competitors.”
Collaboration That Saves Money
MWH uses its new solution to save money
in several ways. First, employees can
effortlessly connect from the field or from
home, and they can easily move from one
office—or even one desk—to another. The
result is less need for physical space,
consolidated offices, and thus lower real
estate costs. “While not all of our property
savings can be attributed to Lync, we
certainly wouldn’t have the lower-cost
options without it,” says Roberts.
More significantly, MWH is deploying Lync
voice capabilities in many offices as a less
expensive alternative to traditional local
telephony. And Lync conferencing saves on
in-person travel costs and on separately
licensed third-party conferencing systems.
Concludes Neitz, ”Beyond the savings, the
really exciting story is that our collaborative
philosophy amplifies the core capability of
our business—providing a positive, lasting
impact for customers, their communities,
and the planet.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. ©2013 Microsoft Corporation.