Voice of the Customer: HP on Lync Implementation

At the Microsoft Lync conference in Las Vegas, I attended a lunch hosted by HP where I got to hear industry consultant James Meade and HP Mobility Practice Leader Jordan Lee discuss Lync customer deployments. Meade discussed his work with HP to deploy a large-scale Lync deployment for an HP client, and Lee described the world's largest Lync implementation, conducted by HP as an internal project.

Lee kicked off the discussion by emphasizing the importance of the network in a UC deployment, noting, "If your network's not in great shape, it will be a problem for your UC deployment." He explained that there's a lot of adoption of Lync for messaging and presence, which doesn't stress the network, but while he's seeing more interest in voice and video, the number of deployments is not as great, primarily because the networks in place can't keep up with demand. He explained that most networks today can't support HD video, and companies may need 10 times more bandwidth for voice, and 50 times more for video in order to support voice and video.

Lee then described HP's own deployment of Lync for 410,000 users - the world's largest Lync deployment. Previously, HP had 900 PBX systems, with pockets of users utilizing IM/presence or video, while conferencing was provided through a third-party provider. The solution was hard to maintain and provided integration challenges.

HP wanted a "true UCC solution," enabling users to collaborate both inside and outside of the organization using any device, while presenting a single identity as users move from device to device with a single experience. With its Lync solution, HP deployed voice capabilities, desktop video, conferencing, click to call, mobility, and other UC capabilities, with 25% growth of active users in first few months.

HP now has 20 million long distance calls going through Lync, and experienced cost savings for conferencing, calling cards, and voice circuits. The average time to call in to a conference was reduced from 45 seconds to 2 seconds. For companies the size of HP, this means 5,000 minutes a month of "productivity that's turned back to employees." Users can connect to a conference with one click directly from their calendar, and don't have to dial in, which is especially helpful to users that may be driving.

Lee also shared some of the lessons learned from the Lync deployment. He recommended:

• Deploying in phases, particularly integrations to existing PBXs.
  
  
• Doing pilots with a couple groups of people.
  
  
• Using Certified headsets and devices to ensure audio quality and to avoid distracting from the call.

HP found that "If you make UC available, people will use it," and that "Lync is becoming core to the UCC strategy of most enterprises; and its use is not a question of if, but when."

Presenting the "voice of the customer" was James Meade, a consultant with TTP Global Services. Meade described an HP project to deploy Lync for Iron Mountain, the largest record storage company in the world. Iron Mountain has five corporate sites, 270 field offices, with 7,500 users total in North America. The company had multiple PBXs, including those from Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, and others. Iron Mountain had selected Avaya for its contact center, and needed a solution that would work with and integrate with the Avaya contact center. While Meade initially looked at replacing the Nortel switches with Cisco, he found that the cost to replace all of the devices was too expensive, and that the impact would be too great. After evaluating several options, they decided on Microsoft Lync.

Meade set out to find a partner that could deploy and support Lync in a multivendor environment, and turned to HP, as most Avaya and smaller resellers didn't have the capabilities to do such a large-scale integration. When asked about the role that HP played in the deployment, Meade commented that "It was a tremendous and successful project with HP. HP helped build the proof of concept, built the Lync infrastructure, and did project management for the rollout of the phones and gateways." Meade added that HP, being a large recognized company and approved vendor, made it easier for him get through the approval process with the customer.

HP and Meade deployed the Avaya infrastructure for the contact center and Lync for field offices and back office workers in 271 sites. Users found that Lync was easy to learn and required minimal training, and quickly adopted the Lync tools.

The results were impressive. By removing 5,000 analog lines, Iron Mountain saved $250,000 per month, and local and long distance expenses were cut by 50%. In addition, videoconferencing expenses were reduced by 20%, while WebEx and audio conferencing costs were cut in half. Iron Mountain's local and long distance expenses went from $8.5 million to $3.5M in one year. The return on investment was less than two years, and operating expenses were reduced by $5 million.

Most of the issues and challenges that arose were user related, rather than technical. Some users, such as C-level executive and admins who used attendant console, lost some advanced features on their phones, and were resistant to using the new system. Meade suggested that companies deploying UC provide change management training for users, and told the audience, "Take the change management aspect seriously - people who are used to a desk phone may be resistant at first. Once they get used to it, they're comfortable with it, but it needs training and change management work." Emphasizing the importance of training, Meade explained that all users went through training, which was required for all corporate employees.

When asked "Why HP?" Meade said that he wanted a partner that could manage a multivendor environment, has the necessary technical expertise, resells the required product, and has experience with large-scale deployments. He noted, "HP put together a small army of people to deploy 5,000 endpoints in 10 months, and built the infrastructure behind it. It was a very successful deployment."

As customers grow and expand their Lync deployments, they experience new challenges. Working with qualified partners that have experience in large-scale deployments can help mitigate issues and ensure a smoother transition to the new solutions.

This paper is sponsored by HP.