Posts by Bill Yackey

The 2012 winners of the Best in Biz Awards have been announced, and West IP Communications captured the Bronze in the Large Company of the Year category!  (West sister company InterCall won the Silver.)

Among the criteria for success were corporate achievements over the last year:

• VoiceMaxx was named 2012 Communications Solutions product of the year by TMCNet

• The MAXXIS Network was named Unified Communications (UC) product of the year award winner by Internet Telephony

• West IP Communications was named a Top 50 Channel Program by the readers of Channel Partners Magazine

• West IP Communication’s Chuck Piazza was named 2012 Channel Chief by CRN Magazine

• West IP Communications rose to the No. 2 slot on Infonetics Research’s North American Business VoIP Services Leadership Scorecard

Best in Biz Awards’ judges are a “Who’s Who” from the world of media.  They include representatives from ABC, BusinessWeek, Computerworld, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Network World.

We’re grateful for this honor and are sowing the seeds for additional success in 2013, starting with our finish in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner’s 2012 UCaaS Magic Quadrant.

D+M Group, a New Jersey-based sound systems company, is just one of many companies that finding the benefits of making a migration to hosted communications from Cisco and West IP Communications. Recently, the company adopted the Cisco HCS voice platform and as a result was able to lower the costs of their communications across the enterprise – and specifically, lower the TCO at the headquarters by 72 percent.

As a global company with more than 2,000 employees, D+M Group was looking to increase operational efficiency, promote innovation through collaboration and lower the TCO of their communications. As a holdings company that is growing by acquisition, it is common for new companies that are brought on board to have disparate communications technology.

Working with Cisco, West IP Communications was able to unite all of D+M’s locations on a common communication platform, accessible via the cloud. VoiceMaxx CE delivers Cisco HCS in a hosted voice scenario, including full PBX functionality, advanced enterprise and personal call management tools, along with West IPC’s unparalleled client support and service. The platform is designed for users who need hosted communications, but have a specific need for an end–to–end Cisco unified communications and collaboration experience.

According to D+M representatives, the results have been very positive. Using Cisco hosted technology delivered by West IP Communications, they have been able to collaborate on a global scale and speed up decision making while traveling less. They were also able to lower their three year communications TCO at their headquarters by 72 percent.

To read the complete case study from Cisco, click here.

Cisco’s annual Collaboration Summit was held last month on Oct. 15-17 in Los Angeles and seeing as West IP Communications is closely aligned with Cisco’s collaboration efforts, EVP Bob Wise was invited to speak on behalf of the company.

In addition to a session in which he described how West IP Communications is using our VoiceMaxx CE product to drive Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration Solution, he also spoke on this Cisco-produced video about the trend of moving to hosted communications.

Our customers are very much interested in a hosted or cloud-based solution,” Wise said. “Web conferencing and instant messaging are still the primary tools, but they want to be able to take those further with the integration of all of the other workspace applications into those tools and do more with them.”

Cisco has announced several new improvements to its Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) to include advancements in many of its features. From TelePresence and Customer Collaboration to Unified Communications, Cisco is focusing a more robust UC experience as an “as-a-service” cloud-based model.

Furthermore, the Cisco WebEx Web Conferencing has been extended to the private cloud, as per the increased demand from its customers, providing the same collaboration capabilities and user experience that they’re used to.

“Although Cisco has put the ‘collaboration’ label on their new offering, Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS), the functional emphasis is on person-to-person business contacts and interactions,” said Art Rosenberg, UC Expert at UCStrategies. “That includes mobile UC capabilities, as well as contact center customer interactions. What I didn’t see (yet), is the role that Cisco’s cloud services will play in supporting UC-enabled online applications for multi-modal mobile users, as well as CEBP process-to-person contacts for time-sensitive alerts and notifications. As I have stressed in the past, these will be particularly important as consumers/customers increasingly use smartphones and tablets to give or get personalized information and messages directly with automated business applications, not necessarily through people. UC-enablement, however, will allow click-to-connect contextually with people, when necessary.”

 

Cisco has announced that D+M Group, a company dedicated to enhancing life through sound and video solutions, has chosen to adopt Cisco’s cloud-based Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) to significantly enhance communication between the organization’s more than 2,000 employees in North America, Europe and Asia.

This solution, offered to customers as VoiceMaxx CE through West IP Communications, gives companies like D+M Group the ability to easily roll out collaboration applications and services through the cloud. Some HCS capabilities include IP telephony, telepresence, contact center and web conferencing.

Specifically, through Cisco’s hosted cloud collaboration offering, D+M Group is increasing the depth and frequency of communication between employees, including those brought in through future acquisitions. The company is also looking to optimize IT resources, reduce operational costs, seek out the best talent regardless of location, and globalize its IT, human resources and finance functions.

Cisco’s partners offering HCS include service providers, systems integrators, wholesalers and resellers. Partners can also offer a version of HCS called HCS-LE (Large Enterprise) that supports private cloud deployments. This deployment option is often suitable for large companies seeking an “IT-as-a-Service” model, but would prefer not to utilize a public cloud option.

“We know that a company focused on providing top quality video and audio solutions to their customers expects the same from the collaboration offerings they deploy inside their organizations,” said Eric Schoch, senior director and general manager, Cisco Hosted Collaboration Business Unit. “We are delighted D+M Group has chosen Cisco cloud collaboration, delivered through West IP Communications, to facilitate outstanding collaboration among their employees around the world.”

Although Lync business is growing strong for Microsoft (up 45% in FY2012 over last year), on the front lines the technology is causing companies some headaches when trying integrate the system across enterprise networks.

According to West IP Communications’ Jeff Wellemeyer, many enterprise Lync deployments are stuck in the pilot phase, where IT has only implemented IM, presence and some audio conferencing. But with the right implementation strategy, Lync can serve as a total communications platform, empowering the PSTN and IP network.

This challenge brought on the idea for a new type of system architecture from West IP Communications: MediaCloud. MediaCloud is an approach that lets enterprises manage the on-premise elements of Lync on their own, but use connections from West IP Communications to external networks.

As Wellemeyer told eWeek, “We’re fighting an uphill battle to get people to completely outsource their Lync deployments and in a lot of cases, it’s better on-prem because there is a lot of on-prem communication that is done, and taking it out into the cloud or onto the network for every call just doesn’t make any sense.”

MediaCloud services from West IP Communications allow a company to easily take full advantage of all of the services Lync has to offer, enabling features like audio/web conferencing and IP-PBX. To learn more about MediaCloud and how it can work for your company, contact us for a free consultation.

LOUISVILLE, KY, October 9, 2012 – West IP Communications, a subsidiary of West Corporation and a leading provider of cloud-based communication applications and services, today announced significant upgrades to its ControlMaxx cloud-based contact center solution, which will maximize efficiency, increase productivity and position administrators and agents to deliver more effective customer service.

“Call center administrators and agents live in a dynamic business environment each and every day.  They face changing business conditions, unpredictable call volumes, corporate governance policies and demanding customers,” said Bob Wise, Executive Vice President of West IP Communications.  “West IP Communications helps call center employees ensure excellence in customer service through ControlMaxx, which can scale with call volumes as contact center locations grow.  Both facilities-based and home-based personnel have full access to ControlMaxx tools with centralized management and reporting.”

ControlMaxx now includes an enhanced user interface, multimedia queuing, session tags and improved reporting capabilities.  Highlights of the new features include:

• Enhanced User Interface – Redesigned menu system for easier navigation and updated call flow component layouts for visual consistency and ease of use

• Better Security - Supports Secure web protocol (HTTPS/SSL) for enhanced security

• Multimedia Queuing – Queuing capabilities for voice calls and chat discussions, opening up a new channel of communication with an organization’s customers

• Queue Priority - Queues can be prioritized for call distribution, ensuring agents in multiple queues will get the highest priority call

• Screen Capture Recording – Audio syncing capabilities with video for better monitoring, quality assurance and training purposes

• Barge –Supervisors are able to join agents on customer calls, in addition to monitor and whisper features, for better call resolution

• Session Tags – Administrators can provide relevant identifiers for use by agents during their calls or chats. Supervisors can also view and filter by identifiers in the Session Reports for better understanding of the relevance of a particular call or chat.

• Enhanced Reporting – Dynamic searching and reporting capabilities of sessions in Excel, PDF and CSV file formats

West IP Communications designs, configures, manages and supports next-generation unified communications (UC) applications and services.  It specializes in transitioning organizations to a cloud-based delivery model for voice services, network services, contact centers and collaboration.

ControlMaxx delivers exceptionally powerful call routing, queue management, and performance reporting tools, providing high-performance enterprises with the capability to meet the expectations of their most demanding customers.  This newest version of ControlMaxx reflects the evolving demands faced by contact centers and is the direct result of in-depth feedback from West IP Communications’ clients.

For more information about ControlMaxx, please visit West IP Communications.

About West IP Communications
West IP Communications is a leading provider of cloud-based communication applications and services – including MPLS-based application network management, hosted voice, unified threat management, advanced contact center solutions, unified messaging, collaboration tools and professional services – all delivered as a unified suite of cloud-based applications.  West IP Communications’ scalable, on-demand applications and services can be integrated with a client´s existing network and telecommunications infrastructure, operational processes, and employee activities, enabling a customer to migrate to unified IP communications as its business requirements dictate.  For more information, visit www.westipc.com or call 1-800-773-3037.

About West Corporation

West Corporation is a leading provider of technology-driven communications services.  West offers its clients a broad range of communications and network infrastructure solutions that help them manage or support critical communications.  West’s customer contact solutions and conferencing services are designed to improve its clients’ cost structure and provide reliable, high-quality services.  West also provides mission-critical services, such as public safety and emergency communications.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, West serves Fortune 1000 companies and other clients in a variety of industries, including telecommunications, retail, financial services, public safety, technology and healthcare.  West has sales and operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.  For more information on West Corporation, please call 1-800-841-9000 or visit www.west.com.

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct 04, 2012 — West IP Communications, a subsidiary of West Corporation and a leading provider of cloud-based communication applications and services, today announced that it has achieved the Cisco(R) Gold Partner and Cisco(R) Cloud Provider certifications. These certifications reinforce West IP Communications’ ability to deliver the most advanced Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) applications available today.

West IP Communications also holds the Cisco Managed Services Channel Program (MSCP) Master certification, making it one of fewer than 25 providers in the U.S. to hold all three certifications.

“Our long-term partnership and commitment to delivering Cisco technology to our clients is a key reason we sought out and achieved these three critical Cisco certifications,” said Bob Wise, Executive Vice President of West IP Communications. “We will continue to provide our clients with world-class solutions, such as Cisco HCS (Hosted Collaboration Solution), and the professional services and expertise necessary to make every UCaaS implementation a successful endeavor.”

The Cisco Cloud Provider certification means West IP Communications is part of the Cloud Partner Program and operates its own Cisco-powered cloud to support Cisco HCS. It also proves the company’s ability to execute end-to-end cloud solutions to drive UCaaS applications across clients of all sizes. West IP Communications has demonstrated this ability through large scale contracts for Cisco HCS in both fully hosted and hybrid environments.

The Cisco Gold Certified Partner is Cisco’s highest VAR (Value Added Reseller) recognition. West IP Communications falls in the one percent of Cisco’s 12,500 partners to hold a Gold Partner status. This certification is attained only through achieving four advanced specializations: unified communications, routing and switching, security and wireless LAN. West IP Communications will be audited annually to ensure the company consistently delivers industry-leading support and maintains the rigorous Cisco standards for network expertise and support capabilities.

“By achieving status as a Cisco Gold Certified Partner and Cisco Cloud Provider in the Cloud Partner Program, West IP Communications has demonstrated a strong commitment to providing its clients best-of-breed Cisco Unified Communications services and collaborative applications,” said Eric Schoch, General Manager of Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration Business Unit. “Further, West IP Communications has shown a strong ability to effectively deliver Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration across a diverse set of client requirements.”

West IP Communications has been a Managed Services Channel Program Master Partner for more than three years, but in order to become recertifed, the company completed an extensive audit of its infrastructure, processes and procedures. West IP Communications was shown to support Cisco advanced technologies at all ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) lifecycle phases, as well as have the proper ITIL and Cisco certified technicians in place to serve clients effectively.

 

About West IP Communications

West IP Communications is a leading provider of cloud-based communication applications and services – including MPLS-based application network management, hosted voice, unified threat management, advanced contact center solutions, unified messaging, collaboration tools and professional services – all delivered as a unified suite of cloud-based applications. West IP Communications’ scalable, on-demand applications and services can be integrated with a client’s existing network and telecommunications infrastructure, operational processes, and employee activities, enabling a client to migrate to unified IP communications as its business requirements dictate. For more information, visit www.westipc.com or call 1-800-773-3037.

About West Corporation

West Corporation is a leading provider of technology-driven communications services. West offers its clients a broad range of communications and network infrastructure solutions that help them manage or support critical communications. West’s customer contact solutions and conferencing services are designed to improve its clients’ cost structure and provide reliable, high-quality services. West also provides mission-critical services, such as public safety and emergency communications.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, West serves Fortune 1000 companies and other clients in a variety of industries, including telecommunications, retail, financial services, public safety, technology and healthcare. West has sales and operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America. For more information on West Corporation, please call 1-800-841-9000 or visit www.west.com.

 

Throughout our 12 year existence of providing hosted IP communications, we’ve run into nearly every IT challenge possible and along the way have helped to cure companies of all sizes of any issue they might have had. As the communications landscape continues to evolve, it seems companies are facing more and more challenges each day.

We call this condition Communications Madness. It is the result of pressure being placed on IT leaders to continuously deploy and support disparate communications-enabling technologies across antiquated and insufficiently robust network infrastructure.

Trends such as BYOD, Unified Communications, and Integration of mobility with desktop functionality combined with resource scarcity, untested technologies, widely dispersed office locations, and ongoing financial pressure are most responsible for this treatable malady.

The way we see it…

There is a cure for Communications Madness – moving communications to the cloud. With a cloud–based service platform that scales as your business changes, your platform can deliver much more than just voice and data. It includes all the communications tools your company needs to work—each hosted and managed by a provider such as West IPC and delivered as a service over any MPLS network connection.

Specifically with West IPC, our powerful web–based management interface gives you visibility into your entire communications platform and provides greater control of service delivery. This frees your team from day–to–day operational burdens, so less time is spent managing infrastructure and applications and more time is devoted to your strategic IT business initiatives.

To learn more about Communication Madness and to access whitepapers on how to cure the madness, visit http://www.westipc.com/about-us/madness/

You have probably heard of MediaCloud if you follow Microsoft Lync news or the Unified Communications space. We released this revolutionary architecture last month as a way to help ease the deployment of complex hosted Microsoft Lync systems across distributed companies. But amid the technical talk, we wanted to take some time to lay out what Media Cloud is in simple terms anyone can understand.

• Many enterprises are looking to Lync as a full PBX alternative, moving beyond just instant messaging/presence. But it doesn’t make sense for them to fully host Lync. That’s where West MediaCloud comes in.
• A new hybrid cloud platform, West MediaCloud reduces the burden of responsibility on IT departments for complex application, network, PSTN and federation infrastructures and services, and helps companies move vast Lync deployments out of pilot stage to full scale production.
• The MediaCloud platform keeps core Lync infrastructure and applications in the enterprise while the media, edge and federation portions of the Lync environment are hosted in data centers.  In effect, West manages the customer network and the MediaCloud infrastructure while the enterprise continues to manage its Lync apps, licenses and users.
• The upshot:  Enterprises get the speed, performance and reliability of a cloud-based solution while also holding firm to command, control and integration capabilities.

We hope this helps better explain this unique architecture, but should you have any more questions (and we hope you do), please feel free to contact us. Our technicians are the best in the business and are happy to discuss your specific needs for Microsoft Lync.