Plymouth City Council

NEC installs next-generation Unified Communications system at Plymouth City Council to support 4000 users.

NEC IT NEC IT Solutions has won a contract with Plymouth City Council to implement Microsoft Lync, the next-generation Unified Communications system, which represents the largest non-Microsoft delivered deployment of the system in the UK to date. NEC’s implementation of Microsoft Lync will reduce the council’s current ICT maintenance and operating costs enable flexible working and support improved communications across the entire estate.

At a Glance The new Microsoft Lync solution will replace and consolidate the Council’s existing communications infrastructure into a single environment which will serve over 4000 users across multiple sites with the ability of increasing the number of users moving forward. All staff will have access to individual and group instant messaging, video conferencing, collaborative virtual meeting space and remote access and support.

Neville Cannon, Assistant Director of ICT at Plymouth City Council comments, “Plymouth City Council put a tender out to the market for a replacement communications solution which would enable the council to become more agile and streamline our communications in light of the recent budget cuts announced by the Government. Over the past few months we have had to reduce our office space by 30%, however we still need to be able to deliver the same levels of service to the Public and our old communication systems simply would not have enabled us to achieve this objective. NEC not only provided the best technical offering but also proposed a solution designed to meet our business requirements, demonstrating their understanding about what we were looking to achieve.”

Vertical: Local Government

Solution: Unified Communications

Size: 4000 user, multiple sites

Project drivers:

Reduce costs

Facilitate flexible working practices

Streamline communications

Solution components:

Microsoft Lync

Professional services

Customer Story

Unified Communications

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Mr Cannon continues, “Having considered what we were paying on maintenance and the costs to bring our current environment up to a standard where it could be used for Unified Communications, we quickly arrived at the conclusion that even with the cost of implementing the new Microsoft Lync technology we would achieve a tangible return on investment.”

By implementing Microsoft Lync with NEC, Plymouth City Council now can incorporate remote workers through a single interface on to instant messenger, voice communications and video and web conference calls. This makes it easy for users to collaborate together and stay connected from virtually anywhere.

Mr Cannon continues, “Flexible working is now a reality at the council. For all staff to be able to instantly see the availability of others no matter where they might be located can only improve the effectiveness and efficiency with the way we work, which in turn will facilitate to further improvements in our service delivery. It also enables us to implement new flexible working practices and potentially make further cost savings on expensive office space. With the ability to extend the system in the future, we can also look at rolling this out to or federating with other public sector organisations in the region.”

Mr Cannon concludes, “NEC has worked very closely with the Council to understand our key requirements and present a system that ticked all of the boxes in terms of solution design, functionality and ease of use. I believe the Council’s investment in the Microsoft Lync technology is not only an enabler for the Council to implement more flexible and agile working practices but also allows us to cut costs and save money as needed without affecting services.”

Unified Communications

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About NEC Unified Solutions:

NEC IT Solutions, the European IT services arm of NEC Corporation*, is a provider of intelligent IT solutions designed to enhance business processes and empower technology customers within the public and private sectors. NEC IT Solutions engages directly with medium and large enterprises on a national and multinational basis, delivering customized solutions utilizing innovative IT, voice, data, mobile, video and networking technologies, from within NEC and from best-in-class industry vendors.

NEC IT Solutions designs intelligent solutions to improve business processes within five key areas:

Communications and collaboration – Increase efficiency, improve productivity and reduce costs by integrating and embedding communications into business processes and applications, and facilitating flexible working strategies

Security – Protect people and assets in the organization with data and IT infrastructure security, biometrics and intelligent video analysis

Resource optimization –Locate, coordinate and manage resources effectively through the integration of applications and the use of intelligent track-and-trace technology, helping to improve productivity, customer service and reducing costs

Knowledge management – Empower users to make quick and informed decisions by providing intelligent search and analytical capability with access to real-time information, anytime, anyplace, anywhere

Intelligent interfaces – Integrate, consolidate and present information to be consumed and displayed in different ways, supporting the varied needs of users and business processes

These solutions areas are underpinned by a portfolio of network and infrastructure technologies and supported by a comprehensive suite of professional services support using on-premise, managed, outsourced and cloud-based delivery models. Professional services expertise includes project and program management, solution design, assessment & readiness audits, consultancy, deployment, management & monitoring, support & maintenance, integration and software development services.

*A Global Fortune 500 company, NEC Corporation is one of the leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse global customer base.

NEC Corporation was founded in 1889 and employs over 140,000 people around the globe, with customers in over 150 countries and millions of users consuming NEC technology daily. NEC has a rich heritage of technology innovation across the areas of IT, electronic devices and networking, and is committed to using its extensive experience in building highly reliable systems backed by state-of-the-art IT and network technologies, to realize an information society friendly to humans and the Earth.

For further information: please contact your Account Manager or;

NEC IT Solutions Tel: 01223 468000 Email: info@emea.nec.com

www.nec-itsolutions.com