Finance Industry- phone install project case study

About the company

This American financial services company is ranked among the world’s oldest and largest investment management organizations. The company manages over $1.7 trillion in assets, has its headquarters in Los Angeles, and has more than 7,000 employees. Though its assets are mostly within the United States, they also has a global presence with offices in America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

CHALLENGES

This organization had an outdated phone system for all five of its US-based locations. They needed newer phones with additional features to upgrade their business environment. Their phone systems, which included Cisco UC phones 7961 and 7906 were also lacking in that their old phone systems were end of life, and thus did not get any product support or device sustenance. Users also felt that the user interface was not up to par.

With this in mind, they wanted to execute the migration of more than 6000 phones across their different US-based office locations. Originally the company went with another engineering firm, but the engineering firm failed to deliver because of the prevalent errors their workforce had and the timeline. Seeking a team that could help pick up the pieces for their phone install, PM2NET assembled a team at each distinct geographical region to help deliver the massive rollout. These included three sites in California, one in Virginia, and one in Texas.

ASsessment and solution

The PM2NET team was tasked with the complete installation of the new phones. This included staging the phones, asset tagging, tracking inventory, uninstalling old phones, cabling into the new phones, migrating the phone profiles and software, and testing the phones to ensure proper functioning. These general steps were followed strictly at each station to allow a streamlined approach at their office buildings. PM2NET aggregated their field services team to perform the services at each site for the multi-regional project in California, Virginia, and Texas. For each site, each technician was badged and a location timeline was followed to ensure efficiencies at each station.

The project was tricky because it required working during and around the end user’s working hours. For more than 6,000 different phones, PM2NET had to install the phones at each site, making sure not to ruin the company’s productivity and workflow and ensuring the accurate transfer of data from the old phones into the new phones, such as their extension numbers. The teams at each site mapped out each branch, plugging in the phones at their designated locations and transferring the data from their previous phones from the legacy system onto the new phones - called teleporting. They also performed MIN tests, making sure that the phones were able to connect to short and long-distance calls. This included testing each headset for proper function. They also tested for aspects such as three-way calling and call forwarding. When a phone system fails, they mark it to allow troubleshooting for later.

Advantages

Apart from the years of support left available in the product, the new Cisco system had the following integrations:

Cisco Unified Communications Manager

8.6.2 and above

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express

10.0 and above

Cisco Business Edition 6000

8.6.2 and above

At the user level, each individual user of the phone receives new perks. While their old phone system had a 4-bit grayscale display, the new phone system had a 5-inch Wide Video Graphics Array (WVGA) with a visual voicemail indicator. Users experience ergonomic design, with simple and conventional menus. The Cisco 8861 headset also allows hearing aid compatibility and volume control.

Finally, it also had 802.3af and 802.3at Power over Ethernet (PoE) compatibility (class 2) and support for Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) and Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) 802.1q, 802.1p. Corporations could also choose to utilize Cisco EnergyWise, which allows measuring and reporting energy consumption across the entire corporate infrastructure. The innovative Cisco EnergyWise technology can significantly impact a company's entire facilities energy budget. It lets users regulate which devices receive power, when they receive power, and how much power they receive. This ability even applies to different branches or buildings, thus having the potential to make a huge impact on corporate-wide savings.