All employees of communications firm Damovo – including 60 in Ireland and 1,100 around the world – are using unified communications (UC) that include instant messaging (IM), presence, audio, videoconferencing and real-time document sharing.
The company’s country manager John McCabe is a big advocate of UC, and said the project was spearheaded from Ireland and is resulting in significant cost savings across Damovo.
In 2008, an independent survey on behalf of Damovo in Ireland showed that €693m is being lost to the Irish economy per annum as a result of time wasted by office workers trying and failing to contact customers and colleagues.
Spearheaded by Damovo’s Irish business, the first phase of the Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) rollout included the executive management team located in the UK, Ireland, continental Europe and South America.
Damovo’s monthly management meetings now take place over the internet, instead of involving time-consuming and expensive international travel. Microsoft OCS Collaboration provides an interactive web space for Damovo’s managers to collaborate online using video and voice over IP, with real-time sharing and editing of company documents.
The impact of UC on Damovo’s business was immediate, explained Mike Parton, chairman and CEO of Damovo: “UC has transformed the way we communicate with each other across the Damovo group.
“As a global business operating in such a large number of countries, we needed to find a way for our managers to truly collaborate and implement cohesive business strategies.
“By deploying Microsoft OCS, our international managers are working more closely together as a team, as we make important decisions for the good of our company and customers. We are also saving valuable time, money and CO2 emissions as we now hold most of our meetings using online videoconferencing,” Parton added.
The next phase of the implementation has brought UC to the desktops, laptops and even mobile devices of all Damovo employees. In Ireland, Damovo’s nationwide team includes account managers and engineers that work in the office, at home, on the road and at customers’ premises.
Damovo has integrated Microsoft OCS into its Irish and International VPN, enabling all employees to reap the benefits of UC, regardless of their location.
Damovo expects its Irish employees to save 100 working days in the first year – using the IM and presence functions alone. With savings on calls and travel included, the solution will fully pay for itself within eight months.
“We now use presence awareness, IM and videoconferencing all the time,” said John McCabe. “Before introducing Microsoft OCS, we lost a lot of valuable time trying to track down colleagues and partners by calling their landlines, mobiles, sending emails etc, while not having any idea of their availability.
“By using presence, I can see straight away who is available on the corporate network, giving me a much better opportunity to communicate instantly. It really is a powerful tool that has boosted flexibility, productivity and collaboration across the business,” McCabe added.
Damovo is currently upgrading to the recently launched Microsoft Office Communications Server Release 2, which provides new and improved features including next-generation collaboration. It is also piloting OCS with a number of Irish companies.
“Damovo took a highly proactive approach to UC from the beginning,” said Microsoft’s UC business development manager for EMEA, Dag Cummings.
“It fully understands the huge benefits that UC can deliver for both its customers and its own organisation. Like us, it believes that its technology will fundamentally change the way people work in the future, and can revolutionise the way we all do business.
“By ‘practicing what it preaches’ and deploying OCS across its Irish and global business, Damovo has strengthened our partnership as we take UC to the next level,” said Cummings.
By John Kennedy
Pictured:Damovo’s John McCabe working on unified communications
