Microsoft Lync Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

Transportation Company Embraces VoIP Collaboration Tools, Drives Efficiency

OverviewCountry or Region: CanadaIndustry: Transportation and logistics

Customer ProfileHeadquartered in Oakville, in the Canadian province of Ontario, Tandet specializes in unique products and services for its customers at various entry points in the North American supply chain. It employs 300 people.

Business SituationTandet wanted to replace a hosted VoIP solution with an on-premises solution and deliver user-friendly telephony and collaboration features to staff—without incurring extra costs or service disruption.

SolutionTandet chose Microsoft Lync Server 2010 for VoIP, unified communications, instant messaging, conferencing, and presence so employees can communicate from within Microsoft Office applications.

Benefits Saved IT costs Empowered IT to serve the business Improved employee productivity Enabled more responsive service Gained communications for the future

“In actual cash flow, we are saving approximately [US]$5,000 a month compared to the previous hosted scenario…. But for Tandet, the benefits are more about the rich feature set and productivity enhancements.”

Corey Cox, Vice President of Information Systems, Tandet

Tandet offers transportation services to more than 500 customers in North America from 10 offices across Canada. Employees need to communicate and collaborate efficiently to improve customer service, remain agile, and gain new business. Tandet wanted more real-time collaboration features than its hosted VoIP solution offered, and IT staff wanted more control over its telephony infrastructure. The company deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010, bringing a single, integrated enterprise VoIP and unified communications solution in-house and providing employees with instant messaging, presence, and voice conferencing through Microsoft Lync 2010. Employees readily adopted the intuitive tools to boost productivity. IT staff can serve the business more efficiently to keep communication lines open and ensure responsive customer service—while saving US$5,000 a month compared to the old solution.

SituationBased in Oakville, in the Canadian province of Ontario, Tandet and its subsidiary companies provide a wide variety of transportation and logistics services that help move product across North America. The company offers full-service leasing, truck rental, dedicated fleet services, freight brokerage, contract fleet maintenance (including emergency roadside assistance) and the sale and maintenance of stationary diesel generators. Additionally, Tandet provides per-load transportation services with a special focus on the chemical, petroleum, propane, and fertilizers segments. Tandet trucks crisscross the continent, hired to scale to customers’ fleets as they accommodate the ebb and flow of their businesses.

“Our services are varied and complex, extending from managing products off the shipper’s dock to lying underneath a 20,000-pound truck to repair an axle,” says Corey Cox, Vice President of Information Systems at Tandet. “We have expertise in niche markets, and being the go-to company for customers with unusual equipment configuration and shipment requirements, we have to be nimble and take advantage of opportunities.”

Importance of CommunicationsThe company’s reputation for specialized, responsive service depends on the seamless flow of information among 10 locations that support dispersed business enterprises. Communications with rural customers still rest on the telephone and fax machine; being able to quickly reach a person on the phone equates to good service for this market. Customers in larger centers often require more complex

communications solutions. Internally, executives and managers expect real-time communications and web and teleconferencing capabilities and a mobile phone that provides access to email. Mechanics prefer cordless Panasonic phones that stand up to abuse on the shop floor. Dispatchers rely on devices that use global positioning systems (GPS) communications to stay in touch with truck drivers and mobile mechanics in roadside vehicles and that use a WAN (wide area network) for inter-office calls.

In 2005, Tandet modernized its telephony infrastructure by subscribing to a hosted VoIP solution―a decision that put the company ahead of the curve within the transportation industry and that saved significant IT costs in physical infrastructure. “We standardized on softphones and used our WAN for calls,” says Cox. “This solution served us well, but we outgrew it from a functional perspective, and I didn’t see it scaling over the next five years.”

Drawbacks of Existing VoIP SolutionThe existing VoIP solution had limited presence that depicted an employee’s status as either “on the phone” or “not on the phone.” It did not offer web or teleconferencing functionality, so Tandet invested in third-party tools from hosted teleconferencing providers. However, employees never really adopted these solutions because they seemed awkward. The VoIP’s dial-by-number feature for the public switched telephone network (PSTN) frustrated callers who had to spell out the recipient’s name on the number pad. Another drawback was that the solution did not offer federation capabilities with popular instant messaging (IM) providers.

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“I wanted to deploy a feature-rich communications solution that would actually get used.”Corey Cox, Vice President of Information

Systems, Tandet

“One customer wanted us to join them on AOL IM, but it wasn’t possible, unless we downloaded the AOL client and added that to the web and audio conferencing tools already on the desktop,” says Cox. “It seemed the more tools we offered our employees, the less they were used.”Tandet wanted more control over the company’s hosted telecommunications solution; it was frustrated at the slow turnaround when its IT professionals requested a change, such as adding or removing employees, or bringing in a new phone line. “With the recent economic turmoil, it’s become even more important to jump on opportunities, and IT has to be even more nimble around communication services,” Cox says. “I had to be able to react quickly to set up response groups―and unique messaging and call-answer solutions―to keep the business competitive. I began thinking about bringing the company’s communications solution back on premises.”

Imperatives for a New Communications Platform Tandet wanted communication tools that everyone would use as an integral part of their work lives, with no training required. “The goal was to give everyone at Tandet that has a computer the same suite of tools, so people can communicate with each other by whatever means, without having to really think about it,” says Cox. “I wanted to deploy a feature-rich communications solution that would actually get used.”

At the same time, Tandet needed to minimize the impact of bringing IT overhead back into the organization. That

meant a simple deployment scenario was high on the company’s wish list. Tandet wanted to take advantage of its previous technology investments, so Cox stipulated that the new communications solution had to interoperate well with the company’s existing Microsoft infrastructure. Tandet standardized its servers on the Windows operating system, and the IT department maintained a well-developed, up-to-date Active Directory Domain Services infrastructure. In 2010, Tandet installed the Windows 7 operating system and Microsoft Office Professional 2010 business productivity software on all of its 100 PCs.

With these criteria in mind, Tandet began looking for a new on-premises VoIP and unified communications solution to support the company’s business communications, including enterprise telephony, IM, web and audio conferencing, unified communications, and presence.

SolutionIn the third quarter of 2010, Cox and his IT team decided to deploy a Cisco VoIP solution. However, when a colleague suggested that Tandet evaluate Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software, Cox decided to take a look. Lync Server 2010 is an enterprise-ready unified communications platform. With Lync Server 2010, employees can keep track of their contacts’ availability, send an IM, start or join an audio, video, or web conference, or make a phone call—all through a consistent, familiar client interface: Microsoft Lync 2010. Cox invited a team from Microsoft and a team from Navantis, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network

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with Gold Competencies, to demonstrate Lync Server 2010 at Tandet headquarters.

“We felt that Lync Server 2010 would be a perfect fit for Tandet because you can take the conversation beyond the phone and turn it into a business productivity conversation,” says Andy Papadopoulos, Managing Director at Navantis. “When you think about how much communication we do day-to-day that doesn’t involve the phone, the Lync Server 2010 real-time collaboration tools, like IM and presence, will provide huge productivity enhancements for Tandet employees.”

Advantages of a Microsoft Communications SolutionIt took just two presentations for Cox to change his mind and entrust Tandet business communications to Microsoft. “The deployment scenario with Lync Server 2010 was surprisingly straightforward. Unlike the Cisco option, we didn’t have to buy router replacements and proprietary appliances or change the switch infrastructure,” says Cox. “I didn’t have to bring in any additional quality of service (QoS) protocols, and it was clear that we could create a design that would fit into our WAN infrastructure perfectly.”

But the “deal-maker” for Tandet was the pervasive presence capabilities within Lync Server that permeate all daily productivity applications that employees use. “Quite frankly, the way a Lync communications solution interoperates with the entire Office suite, with Exchange Server, and with Active Directory was stunning,” says Cox. “Cisco had some competitive features with presence, but I thought, ‘Well, they’ll be good for the IT guys and some of our

power users.’ Yet when I showed Lync Server to one of the presidents and demonstrated how he could see who made the most recent edits to a Word document―and then click on the name to call that person, start an IM session, or share their desktops to go over the draft―he said, ’You mean, I can do that right from the document? We need this now.’ That’s when I saw that people would actually use all the real-time communication features, that this was more than just a new VoIP solution.”

Also, Tandet already owned Microsoft technologies that would extend the value of its Lync Server 2010 deployment, including Microsoft Exchange Server for email and unified messaging so that Tandet employees can access voicemail, email, and calendar information in their inbox. “Now we have all the pieces in place, including Office Professional 2010, which includes presence integrated throughout its applications, for an integrated communications and business productivity environment,” says Cox.

A Better Design for VoIPIn March 2011, Tandet engaged Navantis to help design and build a topology for Lync Server and to deploy the Lync 2010 client to all 100 PCs. The company faced a significant project: moving its entire telephony structure from a third-party data center and bringing it on premises, while at the same time porting phone numbers from major telecom providers to session initiation protocol (SIP) trunk providers. According to Cox, the IT team’s requirements for the new solution added to the deployment challenges. Tandet wanted to use softphones exclusively, except for

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“Quite frankly, the way a Lync communications solution interoperates with the entire Office suite, with Exchange Server, and with Active Directory was stunning.”Corey Cox, Vice President of Information

Systems, Tandet

some desktop phones in common areas, and the IT team wanted to consolidate all traffic to a native SIP trunk in a co-located source in Toronto. This meant that Tandet needed a SIP trunk provider that could provide direct inward dialing (DID) across the entire WAN.

“Navantis rose to the challenge with a team that had deep Lync Server expertise to help us achieve our goals,” says Cox. “Navantis provided us with the diagraming, the topology, and the recommendations for SIP trunk providers. Halfway through the project, I had to put everything on hold while I dealt with other issues, and when I came back, the original resource was no longer available. Her replacement was completely up-to-speed and just as knowledgeable, which was pretty impressive. The system went live, as planned, in June 2011.”

Tandet and Navantis used the Topology Builder tool in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to author the topology and to streamline the deployment. The design features a native SIP trunk right up to the Lync Mediation Server gateway without requiring third-party hardware. All PSTN calls come into one location and then are dispersed across the entire WAN. For redundancy, some branch offices have dual WAN entry points and a cross-over topology to connect with the SIP provider: two Lync mediation gateways each point to a different SIP proxy in different parts of the country and use private connections. “Each of our gateways can talk to each of the SIP proxies in an X pattern, so if one fails, the other still maintains the traffic,” explains Cox.

The design includes an edge server, which provides access for external users and enables federation with public IM systems. The edge server requires an HTTPS reverse proxy server—in this case, Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010. The design called for back-end and monitoring databases powered by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 database management software.

Tandet is using the Response Group service for queuing and intelligently routing calls to designated people in the IT help desk and to dispatch operators. The company is also using the Unified Messaging auto attendant in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to help external callers locate Tandet employees or departments and transfer calls to them. Callers are presented with voice prompts to help them navigate the Unified Messaging menu system. And when the company deploys Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the IT staff will explore building SharePoint workflows with presence.

Tandet is already testing the latest Microsoft Lync Mobile client, which displays employees’ presence status and has a similar look and feel to the desktop version of Lync 2010. To configure and manage the Lync Server solution, IT staff is taking advantage of the web-based Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Control Panel, which is automatically installed on every Lync Server 2010 front-end server.

BenefitsChoosing a Microsoft communications solution testifies to the determination of the IT department to make the right decision for Tandet, even if it meant

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“Employees are sharing desktops to collaborate, address procedural problems, and solve issues faster…. Lync is delivering huge productivity gains.”Corey Cox, Vice President of Information

Systems, Tandet

reversing an almost finalized deal with another vendor. In less than three months, Tandet brought a Microsoft VoIP and unified communications solution in-house that also offers rich presence, IM, and tools for spontaneous communication and collaboration that employees readily adopted.

Saved IT Costs While Tandet had already experienced the savings associated with moving to a VoIP solution, the transition to a Microsoft communications solution enabled further savings through retiring third-party web and audio conferencing solutions and reduced bandwidth utilization, despite bringing the solution back on premises. “In actual cash flow, we are saving approximately $5,000 a month compared to the previous hosted scenario,” says Cox. “But for Tandet, the benefits are more about the rich feature set and productivity enhancements, as well as the improved control over our communications, with no great strain on IT. We are doing everything we want now, without increasing IT costs.”

Empowered IT to Serve the Business IT staff at Tandet quickly familiarized themselves with the Control Panel to save time while managing the new Lync Server environment. As a result, they are providing more responsive service to the business to keep operations running at peak productivity. Instead of taking 72 hours to add a new employee to the communications network, IT staff can provide a person with a new phone number and an external DID in less than two minutes.

Now IT staff can help the business set up federation with outside parties to improve customer and vendor relations. Tandet established a federated relationship with Dell and with its telecommunications provider, and the team is looking at using presence and IM with a customer that also has a Lync Server 2010 environment.

IT staff are using the Lync 2010 client to ensure the company’s communications infrastructure is always available and to quickly add new services as required. Recently, Cox initiated an IM session with a new colleague in the Mississauga, Ontario, office to explain a networking scenario to fix a router problem. During the session, Cox brought up a white board and they talked through the problem. “I can’t begin to imagine how much more quickly he was able to get hold of the carrier and fix the root cause of the problem because of that IM session,” says Cox.

He also recalls, in another instance: “I drew a LAN [local area network] for the IT manager, to help him add communication lines to the office in Winnipeg. He was able to get a contractor a day earlier, which brought the service delivery of those additional lines ahead a day. It’s unusual for IT, but people are contacting us because they are so happy with what we’ve done. One person said this about IT: ‘It’s always what we can do for you; it’s never what we can’t. Kudos!’”Improved Employee ProductivityFor Cox and the IT team, the biggest satisfaction comes from seeing how quickly employees are taking to the intuitive user interface of the Lync 2010 client to connect and collaborate in new ways. The end result is the ubiquitous user adoption and

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"It’s unusual for IT, but people are contacting us because they are so happy with what we’ve done. One person said this about IT: ‘It’s always what we can do for you; it’s never what we can’t. Kudos!’”Corey Cox, Vice President of Information

Systems, Tandet

productivity enhancements that everyone was hoping for. “Because the tool is integrated into the desktop productivity applications we use all day, people instinctively use it,“ says Cox. “Everyone has Outlook open all day, and the Lync client is there to show what everyone is doing, who they report to, and their contact information, all taken from our Active Directory solution.”

Before Lync Server, employees used a third-party web conferencing tool about twice a month. With that same functionality built into the Lync 2010 client, employees are using it every day, from the IT staff right up to the executives. “Our chief financial officer initiated a web conference from his house with people in three locations,” says Cox. “Employees are sharing desktops to collaborate, address procedural problems, and solve issues faster. Would people have driven to another branch to solve these sorts of problems? No. Would they have spent more time solving them with phone and email and screenshots back and forth? Yes. Lync is delivering huge productivity gains.”

Enabled More Responsive ServiceUsing Lync Server 2010, Tandet gains complete telephony capabilities that help ensure high availability through features such as Response Group and Unified Messaging auto attendant. The company now has a more efficient way to handle PSTN callers who don’t know who they need to talk to. “With Response Group, we are routing calls more efficiently using a round robin algorithm, so we can spread calls to a wider group of people, yet reduce the amount of time it takes to be answered,” says Cox. “For the business, it’s

important to maintain customer relationships based on easy access to our people.”

In addition, by using the Unified Messaging auto attendant, Tandet gains a communications solution to help it generate new business. Cold calls from individuals looking for information hold the promise of a business relationship, and that starts by getting to the right person. “One of our sales staff members told me about an individual who, calling one of our toll-free lines looking for a salesperson, got to one of our auto attendants and was able to reach a regional sales manager on the first attempt,” says Cox. “That connection was so positive that the sales rep sent me an email saying, ‘This new phone system is awesome!’”

Gained Communications for the Future The IT team is quick to admit that it has only touched the surface of what it can do with Lync Server 2010. With a scalable deployment model, it’s going to be easy to add to the existing infrastructure as the need arises. “Adding more edge services, splitting out the audiovisual servers, bringing in additional PSTN telephony―it can all be plugged in effortlessly,” says Cox.

The next big step for Tandet is to take advantage of the mobility features within its Microsoft communications solution. The IT team is looking forward to using the Lync Mobile client to extend the Lync Server communications experience to mobile devices, potentially including devices on its trucks and service vehicles.

“My long-term plan includes mobile devices, whether it’s Windows Phones or

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tablets running Lync.,” says Cox. “We can explore building custom solutions for truck drivers and mechanics using devices that could potentially run on Windows 8. We decided to go with Lync Server because it’s got all this potential. This wasn’t just a purchase to replace what we had; this was a purchase to enable the future, and that’s what we have done.”

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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 Navantis products and services, call (647) 258-9031 or visit the website at: www.navantis.com

For more information about Tandet products and services, call (888) TANDET-8 or visit the website at:www.tandet.com

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

Document published April 2012

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

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Lync Server 2010− Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Standard− Microsoft Forefront Threat

Management Gateway 2010− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Technologies− Active Directory Domain Services− Hyper-V

Hardware Servers: Dell PowerEdge R610, 24

gigabytes of memory and dual six-core Intel X5667 processors

Desktop: Dell Optiplex Workstations, Dell Latitude

Partners Navantis