Symantec’s grand global project to build a worldwide company network with innovative technology supporting state-of-the-art facilities, has been successfully rolled-out through Sydney based on a Cisco Unified Communications network solution. IMC Communications were chosen to cover the installation, configuration, and support of the Cisco Networking and IP telephony environment, in order to create a unified approach to telephony across all Symantec sites.
Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software that enables businesses and consumers to have confidence in a securely connected world. With more than 17,500 employees worldwide, the company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance and performance.
Facing an unrelenting stream of communication externally, from millions of customers and internally, between its industry leading IT and business professionals, not surprisingly, Symantec’s own network had to perform second to none.
THE CHALLENGE
As part of its office expansion programme in Australia, Symantec moved out of its North Ryde offices into new offices in North Sydney and the CBD.
Symantec looked to the Cisco Unified Communication solution to deliver voice, video, data and mobile applications to help employees communicate effectively no matter where they work or what devices they use. The solution needed to streamline business processes and help employees reach the right resource the first time with an increase in profitability the big picture goal.
THE SOLUTION
To achieve standardisation and consistency with Symantec’s head office in the United States, the IMC team worked with Symantec in the United States, France, Singapore, and Sydney. The main Symantec project team based itself in Singapore, and the challenge involved coordinating best practices of multiple contractors at their refurbished North Sydney site for optimum results. Like a well-oiled machine, it was imperative IMC’s deliverables and project activities were coordinated and synchronised with the Singapore and US teams.
IMC was responsible for managing and planning the project, coordinating the extensive matrix of schedules and resource assignment. “Our expertise was needed for the design and documentation of a unified North Sydney and Kent Street infrastructure”, explained Fay Simont, IMC Communications Project Manager for the rollout.
The project required IMC’s careful installation and configuration of call manager servers, unity servers and unity accounts (voicemail), voice gateway and additional integration with Symantec’s global call centre application – Apropos. IMC’s role involved meticulous implementation of all the IP Telephony technology in both office locations.
“Our rigorous effort on our part of this worldwide project concluded with training for all the end user staff in North Sydney and key teams in the Kent Street office,” added Simont.
THE RESULT
Symantec now enjoys all the business benefits offered by Cisco Unified Communications with centralised management of all their voice communications. With IP telephony feature parity across their network they can have all their applications integrated across one system.
Symantec staff now see enhanced communications efficiencies through the integration of voice, video and data collaboration and the additional features of data collaboration, video, instant messaging, conferencing and Presence.
IP Telephony has brought the Symantec team a list of business benefits and flexible work practices such as easy to change work locations by simply picking up the phone, move and plug-in for seamless communication access.
Cisco Unified Communications reduces the instances of ‘telephone tag’ and missed calls by leveraging user profile features and increased infrastructure resilience. Extension mobility means that Symantec staff can log in their profiles into their handset wherever they work. These robust work features and functions of the solution provide improved work conditions for those both in the office and those working remotely. Staff can now reduce their travel time by accessing the video conferencing applications of unified communications and stay connected to their team wherever they are in the world.
The Sydney arm of Symantec continues to go from strength with productivity and profitability advantages that are inextricably linked to significant improvements in work efficiencies and working conditions.
