IP Telephony Success Stories
Delivering Lower Costs with IP Telephony
Richard De Soto
Senior Vice President
AltiGen Communications
www.altigen.com
rdesoto@altigen.com
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Why is the IP Phone System
Winning?
 Reduces Total Cost of Ownership
 Self administration easy to learn- no need for tech
visits; No need for two admin tech staffs
 Multi-site networking with IP saves toll costs
 Increases mobility-Remote IP teleworkers saves
toll/floor-space costs
 Offer great value VS cost through better technology
 Lots of features included in basic packages:
Switching, VM, Auto Attendant, ACD, CTI, etc
 IP contact centers- Multi-channel capability
 Future proof technology
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Why is the IP Phone System
Winning?
 Open platforms provide true business applications,
not “technology for technology’s sake”
 Easy integration of IVR, CRM, etc.
 Look for vendors that conform to standards (H.323,
SIP in the future)
 Reliability still there
 Hardware mature
 Embedded OS for call processing
 RAID, mirroring, redundancy
 Quality Voice is real
 Gradual migration possible with many vendors
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
VoIP is Real!
Customer Case Studies
Gibson Guitar
Sunbelt
Software
2001 Inc. 500 list
Hamon
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Challenge in 2000
Toastmaster acquired by Salton
Nortel Call Center Not Upgradeable
Calls exceeding Voice Mail/Queue Capacity
Toastmaster unable to make system changes
without reseller
Not integrated with other Company locations
Didn’t provide needed features
Based on aging technology
100’s of Products
Fast growth- acquisitions
100’s of Employees
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP-PBX for Salton HeadquartersChicago
Systems Connected via Voice over IP- Toll Savings
- 4 digit dialing between users
Corporate
Headquarters
Chicago
VoIP
VoIP
Headquarters
Missouri
Call Center
Missouri
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX Replaces Legacy Nortel PBX
in Toastmaster Corporate
•Systems Connected via Voice over IP
•Calling Transparent Between Systems
•Dramatic Increase in Voice Mail Capability
at much lower cost
VoIP
Headquarters
Missouri
Call Center
Missouri
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX with Contact Center
Replaces Nortel Call Center
•


Increases Functionality, Capacity and Manageability
Significant savings over installing new Nortel System
Positioned for Multi-Channel/IP contact center and homebased agents
3,500 Incoming
Calls Per Day
“I would like the
George Foreman Grill”
Missouri Call Center
In 2 years grew from
$50 million to $1
AltiGen Communications
Billion
Annual Sales
R. De Soto Jan 03
Flexible Migration to
Future Proof Technology
Remote office added
Using only IP Phones
Remote Office
Georgia
Corporate
Headquarters
Chicago
VoIP
VoIP
Headquarters
Missouri
Call Center
Missouri
Planning
Begins for 8
New
Locations
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Challenge 1999
Aging NEC PBX at Corporate Headquarters in Nashville
Limited Voice Mail and Auto Attendant didn’t represent
intended company image
Gibson technology driven manufacturer, but forced to pay
$1000’s per month in service fees to NEC dealer to maintain
proprietary equipment
NEC PBX not able to integrate with company network
Missing path to unite locations and adapt to new technology
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX Implementation 1999
Gibson IT Staff to manage daily moves, adds and changes.
Company rolls out voice mail with expanded features to all
corporate employees. Redesigns company auto-attendant to
reflect corporate image. Eliminates busy signals.
Networks IP Phone system with company Local Area
Network for integration with email and Outlook contact
manager.
Begins plan for rollout to Gibson showcase sites and other
factory locations.
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX Implementation
2000
IP PBX installed in Gibson Showcase facilities. Systems
remotely administered by Gibson MIS staff.
Systems installed in additional manufacturing facilities.
 Company continues to decrease service charges
through self-maintenance and administration.
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Gibson Implementation 2002
 New 150+ extension installation
scheduled at additional factory
Contact Center to be
implemented at Corporate to
support sales and customer
service call center needs
Gibson continues company
success through new products and
acquisitions such as Baldwin
Pianos. Company makes decision
to standardize on IP PBXs.
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Hamon
5 sites: Completely Revolutionized Network
Founded in early 1900’s in France and Belgium
Started US operations in 1980- In business to keep
air clean for power and energy companies
(manufacturer of cooling systems, chimneys, air
pollution controllers, heat exchangers)
1999:
Acquired Pittsburgh steel factory with old PBX &
rotary phones-175 employees, 60 using phones at
desktop
Hamon
Pittsburgh Steel
Factory
Installed AltiGen server-based PBX
 Chief Benefits- Affordability and Lower Cost of
Ownership due to Self Admin
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Hamon
Second Site Added
Headquarters
Building with
Lucent PBX
2000-- Running out of space in NJ headquarters
Not ready to write off Lucent PBX- Lucent quoted
multiple “extenders” at $20K each to new building
across the street- total cost “staggering”
New AltiGen IP PBX installed at new building
acting as IP gateway to Lucent and local AltiGen
PBX
 Chief Benefits
 Significant savings over Lucent
 Affordable expansion
 Easy migration when Lucent PBX depreciated
 VM, ext-to-ext dialing between systems
T1
Link
New Building
with AltiGen
PBX/Gateway
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Hamon
3 More Sites Added with VoIP Networking
2001– Standardized on AltiGen at remaining sites
 IP PBX installed at Kansas City office
 Remote IP extensions installed at two warehouses
negating full PBX costs
Kansas City
 All five sites now networked together with 3 digit ext
dialing via VoIP
Remote Warehouses
Benefits
 All employees operating as if under one roof
 Cut toll costs by over $8,000 per month
 Remote IP extensions lowered cost of communications
at warehouses
AltiGen Communications
 Able to leverage existing frame relay network and LAN
R. De Soto Jan 03
Hamon
A Completely Revolutionized Network
2002– All sites networked via VoIP
New Jersey
Headquarters
NJ extension
 “By implementing AltiGen VoIP,
Hamon saves over $8,000 a month just
in interoffice calls”, But the benefits go
far beyond that. We are able to unify the
company. We just pick up the phone and
dial anybody’s 4-digit extension. It’s that
easy and there are no long distance
charges. The ease in which our AltiGen
telephone system continues to allow us
to grow is critical to the success of the
business”- Jim Violette, Hamon CFO
Kansas
City
Remote Warehouses
W/ IP extensions
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Case Study
Fast Growing Real
Estate Loan
Company
• Started with 6
employees
• Grew to 2 switches
in Orlando
Headquarters
• Admin issue with
managing multiple
switches separately
• Added contact
center in Orlando
1999- Initial Phase:
PSTN
Small System with only 6
employees
2000- Two systems operating:
Each system administered
separately
AltiServ PBXs
W/ Contact Center
Orlando
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Ivanhoe Financial
Phase Two: 2002
• Centralized Admin
software manages
all extensions and
voice mail from
central location
• Each Switch is
Fully Intelligent &
Affordable
• Full Call
Processing and
Full Applications
capability in each
switch
• PSTN for local
calling & available
as backup if IP
links fail
PSTN
PSTN
Virginia
AltiServ with
Contact Center
Two AltiServ with
Contact Center
Orlando
With DINA Manager
AltiServ
With Contact
Center
PSTN
Chicago
AltiGen Distributed Intelligence Network Architecture
(DINA)
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX Benefits to Ivanhoe
• Meeting Ivanhoe's growth, expansion, integration and
customer service requirements.
– Expanded to include two additional office locations in Virginia and
Illinois, integrated together with Voice Over IP links.
– 3 contact centers to improve overall customer service in each region
– Interoffice call routing, unified dialing and voice mail messaging are
transparent on all systems.
– With AltiGen's DINA Manager, they can manage and synchronize
multiple systems with a single administrative tool
– Keep Toll costs down via IP-based voice connectivity
• "Knowing that our company would be adding more employees in the
future, we were impressed with the platform's ability to grow without
throwing away any pieces. Our employee base has grown from six
employees to over 250 employees and the AltiServ converged system
has allowed us to keep up the pace by balancing out communication
needs and resources.”-- Linda Fox Mittan, Ivanhoe Sr. Vice President
and Chief Information Officer
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Craft-Diston: Unification of
Eleven Locations with VoIP
Issues:
• Growing shower door, tub enclosure, mirror closet door
manufacturer with five manufacturing plants and 6 other
offices in the US
• Initially chose 100% IP solution from major networking
company to link all locations
• Implementation was a disaster- too complex, too many
separate servers. Centralized Call Manager systems
crashed too often and would take down half of the
locations around the country
• 7 months and $1 million later- back to drawing board.
Networking company agreed to take systems back.
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Craft-Diston Final
Solution
Solution:
• Selected alternative vendor/reseller (AltiGen/Network
Innovations)- implementation much less complex using
single integrated servers at each site with built-in
redundancy.
• 8 locations installed with integrated single-server system and
3 sites served by remote IP phones
• In less than one month all locations were installed and
working
• Distributed architecture allowed locations to operate
independently with unified dialing and managed as one
image with multi-server management software
• Now has unified all interoffice calling, call routing, voice
mail distribution and system-wide extension synchronization
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Craft-Diston: Cost
Savings Benefits
Additional Benefits:
• Saving $20,000 per month long distance costs
• Centralized self management of multiple sites
saves move, add, change charges
• Improved customer service- affordable contact
center software for customer service department in
Florida
• Easy to manage and use system
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
Sunbelt Software
Single Site Success Story
#409 on the 2001 Inc. 500 list
Offices in US and Europe
In 2000 expanding, outgrowing phone
systems- Installed IP PBX in Clearwater, FL
office for 50 employees in 2000 (now at 80)
Goal: Seamlessly integrate their LAN and
database to improve customer service
Sales
Acctg
Integrated screen-pop with SalesLogix CRM
Implemented multiple integrated Contact
Centers for sales, tech support, accounting
Tech
Support
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
IP PBX Benefits to Sunbelt
• Open platform- with SDK easy to integrate SalesLogix CRM
to Integrated Contact Center
• Improved Customer Service- Set up separate workgroups for
Sales, Tech Support & Accounting- productivity of people is
measurable, can coach on improvement
• Saved Money- Via self admin & CDR used to cross-check bills
• Improved Security
• Eliminated abuse of phone system, lowering costs- blocked
900 and unauthorized LD- can be done on an individual basis
“AltiGen has not only saved us money on administrative costs,
but also has provided an improvement to effectively service
our customers and a tremendous return on investment, it’s
no wonder we made the Inc. top 500 list!”—Stu Sjouwerman,
President of Sunbelt Software
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03
AltiGen
Delivering Lower Costs with IP
Telephony
AltiGen Communications
R. De Soto Jan 03