X

Betach Solutions was tasked with migrating Associated Engineering from a legacy 2007 Exchange environment to Exchange Online with Office 365. The legacy system was costly to operate due to hosting expenses and infrastructure management. The client also lacked the flexibility and the administrative and operational capabilities to manage their own system. The Hybrid Migration model that allows moving batches of users was unavailable due to the client having about 1,000 mailboxes. This meant that Betach needed to use a different methodology to extract and migrate the data.

A group of companies serviced by ICONS had a large number of mailboxes using both Lotus Notes and Google Apps. In order to optimize their business operations, the group wanted to standardize to one email platform. When they approached Microsoft regarding this issue, the recommendation was to move everything to Office 365, which the group also saw as the best fit. However, the built-in tools offered by Office 365 that ICONS would typically use for such migrations were not able to handle multiple mailbox formats. To best serve their customers, ICONS realized there was now a need to select a mailbox migration solution for this project that could: Seamlessly migrate multiple email platforms to Office 365, Complete the process with zero user downtime, Avoid any manual configuration steps.

Appelsiini found themselves with 3 customers (totaling about 8600 mailboxes) needing to migrate off their existing mail systems with only four weeks before the customers’ servers were scheduled for a hard shutdown. If Appelsiini couldn’t complete the migration by then, the customers would either lose their data or be forced to renew their service agreement for an additional year, doubling their service expenses as they paid for both old and new mail systems for an entire year. Each of the clients were migrating to Microsoft Office 365 for its ability to provide the most current services and software available on an enterprise cloud platform.

Agrei Consulting was tasked with migrating a number of subsidiaries across more than a half dozen mail platforms within six months. The subsidiaries used a wide variety of email systems, including Exchange on-prem, Lotus, Google, hosted Exchange, Zimbra, among others. One subsidiary had all its 40,000 mailboxes on Google. Because Agrei had come to the project when it was already in progress, timelines were condensed, and these Google users needed to migrate within a month. The sheer scale of the project was daunting, and there were concerns about whether tech support staff were up to speed on the new technology and could handle the migration.

ProServeIT’s customer, The Canadian Standards Association, was looking to migrate its mail from a hosted source environment that was fully managed. CSA did not have administrative rights on the source environment. This presented a challenge to the migration process, where typically having full control and administration rights are ideal.

ODM Computers faced a challenging task of migrating 3,500 mailboxes from Microsoft Office 365 to on-premises Exchange within a single weekend. The customer had strict requirements and could not afford any downtime as it would adversely affect their business. The migration had to be executed within the customer's security compliance standards, ensuring that the data would never leave the BitTitan servers inside the European region.

Advance2000 had just completed its first Office 365 sale, and needed a fast and reliable method of onboarding the customer as a next step. However, because they would be moving customers from various platforms to Office 365, they faced a dilemma in finding a solution that could perform that task. Completing the project manually via PST Export was Advance2000’s usual method of performing migrations, but was not an option for this project for several reasons, including: Long configuration process, Slow time to completion, Risk of data loss or corruption, End user interruption and productivity loss. Ideally, the company imagined a solution that would automate the process of Office 365 onboarding, but ultimately they weren’t sure such a product was available.

Sovran, a professional IT support and management services provider, was seeking a method to make their end-user migrations to Office 365 more efficient. They were looking for a solution that would offer cost savings, user management, data protection, streamlined processes, and specialized configuration options. Manual migration was quickly ruled out due to its tedious nature and potential for data loss. The built-in tools with Office 365 that Sovran had previously used for onboarding new users and migrating data fell short in key areas, including stability and ease of use. The company needed a robust method for conducting Office 365 onboarding that would not take an excessive amount of time, would automate the entire process, and would not risk losing customer data.

The healthcare organization was using on-prem Exchange and Symantec Enterprise Vault for email and file archiving. The incompatibility of Enterprise Vault on-prem with Office 365 posed a significant challenge to the cloud migration plan. If the mailboxes were moved without moving Enterprise Vault, users would lose access to essential data. This forced CGNET to revise its initial migration plan. Despite the complexity involved, migrating the archives to Office 365 was a must-have and CGNET needed to find a way to do it.

Mural, a company that delivers end-to-end cloud IT onboarding, upselling, and support solutions, was facing challenges with its existing method of handling mailbox migration to Office 365. The company was using Outlook’s built-in PST export functionality, which proved to be cumbersome and inefficient for the scale of migrations they were routinely performing. Mural needed a more sustainable, long-term solution that could quickly migrate data error-free, be easy to configure, have a simple, non-technical user interface, be cost-effective, and address a diverse variety of messaging solutions. The company also needed a solution that could handle complicated scenarios, including destination servers that use multiple email platforms, and hosted exchange providers that do not allow access to other mailboxes.

Office Depot, Inc. was facing challenges in delivering a consistent customer experience through their contact center due to the complex global environment and resources deployed across multiple locations around the world. With their previous applications deployed on premises, they lacked central visibility and transparency over operations. It was a challenge for headquarters to manage and control performance globally. Office Depot, Inc. had multiple contact center sites: some in-house and others at partner sites. Site, team, and agent performance management was distributed. Some sites used Office Depot, Inc. contact center systems and reported their performance through them. Others were managed independently by partner managers with their own systems and performance reporting procedures. This resulted in inconsistent performance and customer experiences from site to site.

WUN Systems, a provider of an end-to-end Workspace Management Platform, wanted to offer a highly reliable and scalable VoIP service that would easily integrate into their platform. They were looking for an enterprise-grade, solid platform that would enable their customers to communicate seamlessly, whether they were working from their HQ, regional office or a remote location. WUN Systems was looking for an innovative, reliable and experienced communications vendor.

CBTS, a subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell, was facing several challenges in its operations. The company was struggling with time-to-market issues, as new features and enhancements were only being delivered once or twice a year. This slow pace was causing them to lag behind their competitors. Additionally, every time CBTS introduced a new version of their client software, they also needed to update the branding, which was a labor-intensive process that further delayed the delivery of the latest features to customers. CBTS also lacked the internal expertise to drive mobile innovation, which was a vital aspect of communications. Lastly, the company needed to increase operational efficiencies to free up their engineering and operational teams’ time to work on more strategic projects.

The university relied on an aging PBX network to serve its medical center and the academic side of its operations. The 30-year-old equipment was no longer supported by the manufacturer and lacked the features and scalability needed to support future growth. Parts procurement had become problematic, maintenance costs were soaring, and it was clear an immediate change was needed.

Montgomery College, one of the nation’s largest and most highly regarded community colleges, faced several communication challenges. Team members working remotely across multiple campuses and course delivery sites needed access to a consistent telecommunications infrastructure. The tech-savvy student body expected to communicate and collaborate from any location over any device. The college's premise-based communications platform was comprised of disparate platforms that didn’t easily integrate with other strategic cloud investments. Officials were determined to find a way to transform communications and build a “connected campus”— able to support administrators, faculty and students wherever they work or study.

The National Laboratory was supported by a large telco-type switch built on 1980s-vintage TDM technology. The system took up an entire floor of an office building and had twice the capacity the Lab actually needed. It also required a team of about 20 engineers just to provide maintenance. The Lab’s IT team looked for a more modern and cost-effective approach to communications that could transition the campus from TDM to voice over IP, leveraging the Lab’s own supercomputing network. The solution would need to support employees and contractors campus-wide, including critical call center and help desk teams. It also would need to interoperate seamlessly with various network components and applications the Lab already owned — many of them home-grown.

MISS DIG System, Inc. was using an outdated call center telephone system for 10 years, which prevented them from achieving their vision of being a more agile organization. The old system supported taking notifications only through telephone calls. MISS DIG 811 had two 800 numbers, each with its own team of NSRs with different scripts and processes. This meant that callers were getting an inconsistent experience based on the number they dialed. With the old system, every caller was randomly sent to whomever was available to take the call at the time, regardless of the caller’s or NSR’s experience, role, or personality. Often callers dialed the wrong number or made the wrong interactive voice response (IVR) selections, and ended up in the wrong department. When these calls were transferred, there was no way to know whether the recipient was available to answer the call or whether the caller would end up in another queue or voicemail. Another challenge was the inability to integrate the old call recording system with the MISS Dig 811 CRM, Newtin, which made it extremely difficult to associate inbound notifications with call recordings. This integration was an important requirement, as a new law requires MISS DIG 811 to maintain all inbound notifications for six years. MISS DIG 811 personnel spent hours trying to match recordings with notification tickets, wasting valuable time and energy that could have been spent serving customers. The old system tracked all callers in the same way, without making a distinction between first-time residential callers needing education and repeat callers. As a result, MISS DIG 811 did not have the data to back up its intuition that first-time callers were inflating its time-on-call metrics.

The agency administrative team had been relying on 250 standalone phone systems to support remotely based personnel. However, the aging equipment had become unreliable and lacked modern-day features. Each office had its own unique dialing plan, billing process, support model, and contract, creating complex administrative challenges. The administrators were looking for a better way to support the team and to provide the advanced communications and collaboration tools needed to further the agency’s mission.

The Nigerian branch of United Bank for Africa (UBA) was seeking a solution to enhance customer engagement and offer new, more convenient services. Given the prevalence of SMS-based mobile banking in Africa and Nigeria, the solution needed to support this widespread technology. Additionally, it needed to enable massive sending volumes, considering UBA’s large user base.

Natural disasters and armed conflict leave millions of people as refugees and displaced people across the globe each year, often separated from family and friends and lacking the resources to locate them as the first step towards reuniting. REFUNITE helps displaced persons find their loved ones through a global, online database that can be accessed and searched online or via mobile. Mobile is the true challenge: it needs to be a reliable and resilient service that can work even far away from any kind of internet coverage and be cost-effective for REFUNITE, but also familiar and widely used by users in different countries.

Before TLC Marketing joined forces with Infobip, they didn’t have the technical capacity to automatically check all the entries they’ve gained through their SMS marketing campaigns and polls. This important part of the process was done manually, and it became apparent that automating the entire validation process would greatly ease their campaigns execution. What TLC needed was an advanced, automated solution for an efficient handling of their promotional SMS coupons sent by subscribers.

Argo Marketing Group, a campaign management firm, shifted its focus to coordinated services like direct-response sales and customer engagement support in-house. As the company grew, it needed a flexible and scalable solution that avoided costly legacy systems while remaining cost-effective. The company also needed to test new development opportunities while proving effectiveness and ROI to potential new clients. Argo had clients who needed multiple contact centers to handle massive amounts of inbound calls across carriers and time zones. The company needed to understand what its 500+ employees were doing at any given time to increase efficiencies and to offer a “one stop shop” to clients without taking on costly legacy equipment.

Albany International Corp., a global leader in advanced textiles and materials processing, was in need of a secure, reliable, and cost-effective communications solution to enhance its business operations. The company operates 18 plants in 11 countries and employs 4,000 people worldwide. As Albany was evaluating its telecommunications services, it needed a solution that would not only be cost-effective but also enhance the company’s security and bandwidth with minimal investment. The ability to balance the deployment and integration of new technology without impairing the company’s daily business processes and bottom line performance was paramount in selecting the right vendor. Albany needed an experienced and efficient SIP trunking provider to achieve its goals.

Enabling Technologies, an IT consulting firm, was transitioning from a systems integrator to a Microsoft consulting practice. They needed robust SIP trunking services to support Skype for Business deployments. Their clients, who traditionally used PRIs, needed a streamlined digital workplace that would allow workers to compute from any place, anytime, on any device. The challenge was to find a cloud communications company that was easy to work with, offered demonstrated results, and could provide cost-efficient internet-based telephony that was reliable, scalable, and certified with Microsoft Skype for Business.

Softcom Internet Communications, Inc., a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) was facing challenges with its SIP service provider. The company was experiencing service outages every few weeks and some features wouldn’t work properly with its ShoreTel IP-based telephone system due to compatibility issues. When there were problems, support was only average – and definitely not 24/7 – and the provider wouldn’t take ownership of the issues Softcom was experiencing. For a business like Softcom, whose customers need support around the clock, something had to change. That’s when CTO Brian Meredith began the search for a new SIP provider whose services were more reliable and compatible with Softcom’s communications infrastructure.

Georgia Military College (GMC) was facing a challenge with their existing broadband provider. The provider's tech support was poor and their reaction time was slow. GMC was unable to get a service representative on the phone during a state of emergency. This was a tipping point for GMC and they began looking for other providers. GMC has twelve Distance Learning campuses and additional base campuses across Georgia. They were running Microsoft Communicator (now Skype for Business) through the broadband provider. The campuses are interconnected through an MPLS network. If that network goes down at a particular site, their phone systems have zero remote survivability.

Secure Transportation, a transportation provider for a major healthcare organization, was experiencing a 400% growth spurt and needed to quickly expand their call capacity. Their two call centers, based on a traditional PRI circuit with 23 channels, were struggling to keep up with the company's rapid growth. When a new client's estimate of 100 calls per day turned out to be closer to 2200 calls per day, Secure Transportation needed a new solution, quickly. Traditional carriers offered an extended time frame of 20-45 days to provide the 200+ SIP trunks they needed, which was unacceptable for Secure Transportation.

Southwest Construction Services, a Texas-based leader in sawing, concrete, and waterproofing services, was facing issues with their existing phone system. The company was frequently running into audio issues and even experienced a two-day outage. This was a significant problem as a reliable phone system is a key component to maintaining their promise of delivering safe, quality, and on-time installations for its customers. Realizing that traditional carriers would not be able to accommodate immediate service activation, they began to look into other options.

First Nations Home Finance Corporation (FNHF) is a full-service mortgage banker funding thousands of individual home loan mortgages annually. The company has nine branch offices and over 100 staff members in various cities throughout Southern California, and also does business in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. To support its geographically dispersed team, FNHF launched an enterprise cloud network to provide secure access for processing loan applications. However, the company's first SIP trunk provider had several limitations that negatively impacted the reliability and quality of service the company expected and required. As a result, FNHF needed to find a new communications partner with a proven track record of providing secure, reliable SIP trunking services.

Horizons Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner firm, was in need of a cost-effective communications solution that would offer scalability and reliability. The company specializes in email messaging and collaboration services integration and has served a wide variety of enterprise clients in many different industries and geographic locales. They were not satisfied with the services of their previous provider due to significant deployment, billing, and number portability issues. As a small organization with a highly distributed base of remote employees, it was crucial for Horizons to partner with an experienced communications company that could provide a proven level of reliability and quality deployment.