Microsoft Lync Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

GEA Group Consolidates Communications Solutions to Save Money and Improve Productivity

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Manufacturing

Customer ProfileHeadquartered in Bochum, Germany, the GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft is one of the largest system providers for food and energy processes, with about EUR€4.4 billion (U.S.$6 billion) in 2009 revenue.

Business SituationGEA wanted to replace its heterogeneous communications tools with a solution that would reduce costs and facilitate improved communications across the company.

SolutionGEA deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide voice, conferencing, instant messaging, and presence to its worldwide locations.

Benefits Reduced communications costs Improved productivity

“Lync will dramatically change the way we communicate in a positive way, and it will help us improve productivity and reduce costs at the same time."

Rolf Parschau, Group CIO, GEA Group

The GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft has more than 20,000 employees who focus on process technology and components for demanding production processes in markets such as the food and energy industries. With more than 250 companies in 50 countries, GEA has a very distributed workforce. Employees had problems communicating because the group had not standardized its communications environment. Each office procured solutions for telephony, conferencing, and any other communications needs. To improve communications, the group chose Lync Server 2010 as its companywide communications solution and will deploy it to 15,000 users. After deployment, GEA expects to improve productivity and to significantly reduce costs for mobile and fixed-line telephony, audio conferencing, and travel. A standard communications solution will help the group’s offices and companies work better together.

SituationThe GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft is one of the largest system providers for food and energy processes. It is comprised of more than 250 companies in 50 countries. Because the group grew through acquisitions, it lacked centralized standards for its IT solutions. Individually companies or offices generally purchased the solutions they needed. This lack of central control sometimes led to issues when the companies wanted to work together. One area that was particularly affected was communications.

With many different systems in place to provide communications services like telephony, audio and web conferencing, and instant messaging, companies often found it difficult to communicate. The heterogeneous systems were a barrier to effective collaboration and led to higher costs for procurement and administration.

In 2007, the company decided it needed to standardize its IT infrastructure, including communications. GEA first deployed a standardized desktop across the company with the Windows Vista operating system and Microsoft Office 2007 and is currently in the process of upgrading to Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010. It is also deploying Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as companywide solutions for messaging and collaboration.

When looking for a communications solution, the company wanted to provide the tools that new employees were demanding, such as instant messaging, presence, and social media features, along with integrated telephony and conferencing. GEA considered a solution

from IBM, but felt that Microsoft had a better solution. “Microsoft is ahead of IBM in this market,” explains Ronald ten Wolde, Head of GEA Group IT Infrastructure. “SameTime integrates with a PBX [private-branch exchange], whereas Lync can replace the PBX.”

SolutionGEA ran a pilot of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, now called Microsoft Lync Server with the 2010 edition. When Lync Server 2010 became available, GEA decided to deploy the latest software to take advantage the improved capabilities. GEA worked with Damovo to design and deploy the Lync Server solution, which provides instant messaging, presence, conferencing, and voice communications through a single client. Headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, Damovo provides information communication technology (ICT) services in more than 90 countries. GEA turned to Damovo because it is a leader in deploying Microsoft communications technology. “Microsoft communications solutions deliver significant savings in terms of both time and money, while at the same time improving communication and efficiency for our clients,” notes Alexandra Hanke, Alliance Manager at Damovo. “Microsoft Lync Server offers many benefits, such as ease of implementation, user familiarity, and also delivers a significant ROI that enables us to build a strong business case for our clients.”

GEA has deployed Lync Server to 5,000 users. The architecture consists of a pool of two consolidated front-end servers, which provides high-availability in the event one of the servers fails. It also deployed a

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“We didn’t use a lot of web conferencing in the past, but Lync makes it so easy that we see it becoming very popular.”

Stefan Brexel, Project Manager, GEA Group

Monitoring Server to generate reports on usage and call quality. For the backend database, it is using a four-node Microsoft SQL Server 2008 cluster. The group deployed voice capabilities at two locations using AudioCodes gateways that are connected directly to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN).GEA plans to expand the solution to more than 250 companies in 50 countries. Depending on the size of the office at each location, GEA will deploy an AudioCodes gateway either in conjunction with a standard edition Lync Server or as a standalone Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA). The SBA is based on cost-effective AudioCodes media gateways hosting the Microsoft Survivable Branch Appliance software package. The SBA provides communications through a PSTN connection in the event of a WAN (wide area network) failure. As it deploys voice capabilities at the branch offices, the company will retire the existing PBX equipment.

In addition to the SBA, GEA will use another important capability, Call Admission Control (CAC), to limit the number of concurrent voice or video connections people can make at a given site. CAC helps to maintain call quality at sites that have limited bandwidth. GEA will also set up the call routing to take advantage of least-cost routing. For instance, calls within Germany will be routed over the PSTN because there are no toll charges for them, saving bandwidth on the network for international calls.

The Lync Server enterprise voice solution works so well for GEA because employees can select the tools that will help them be

the most productive. “Some of our employees want a phone on their desks, so they can use the Polycom CX600. Others are more comfortable with a headset and like being able to answer calls when they are out of the office, so these employees will get Jabra Headsets,” explains Stefan Brexel, Project Manager at GEA.

GEA is accustomed to having local administrators manage employees’ accounts. Through the web-based management console, GEA can grant administrative access to the administrators at each office, using role-based access control (RBAC) settings to limit individual administrators’ access to the functions that they need. GEA will also use the Lync Server management pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. “System Center Operations Manager works out of the box with Lync Server and has a really sound design,” explains Brexel. “When it shows us errors, they make sense, and we can quickly resolve the issues.”

The Lync 2010 client features the Microsoft Office 2010 user interface, which is familiar to people at GEA. Through the client, employees can access all of the voice, conferencing, and instant messaging capabilities. They can also easily set up call-forwarding to mobile phones, which is extremely important for mobile users. GEA will also use the Location feature, which automatically updates an employee’s location based on his or her network connection. Employees can manually update the location when they are out of the office.

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“Microsoft is ahead of IBM in this market. SameTime integrates with a PBX, whereas Lync can replace the PBX.”

Ronald ten Wolde, Head of GEA Group IT Infrastructure,

GEA Group

BenefitsWith the Lync Server 2010 deployment, GEA is providing a standardized communications infrastructure for all of its employees. Having a standard communications solution for the entire company will help GEA reduce costs in many areas. The solution will foster collaboration between offices by making it easier for people to find and contact coworkers. It also provides the instant communications and social media integration that younger users expect. “As a global business operating across a number of countries, GEA needed to find a way for its people to communicate and collaborate more effectively,” adds Hanke. “The implementation of Lync Server 2010 has boosted flexibility, collaboration, and productivity across the organization.”

“Lync Server will dramatically change the way we communicate in a positive way, and it will help us improve productivity and reduce costs at the same time," adds Parschau.

Reduced Communications Costs Because local offices purchased their own communications solutions in the past, GEA was paying for solutions from many different providers. It could never take advantage of its size to gain discounted pricing. With the Lync Server deployment, GEA will retire most of these solutions. The group will save money on the procurement and maintenance of its many different PBX systems. It will also stop paying for hosted audio conferencing and web conferencing services and use Lync for all of its conferencing needs. “Today we spend a lot of money on conferencing services, and we can get rid of all of the services now that

we have Lync deployed,” notes Rolf Parschau, CIO, GEA Group.

GEA will also save on telephony costs for both mobile charges and international toll charges. “Our current tendency is to call people on their mobile phones because we know they will have it with them,” explains Brexel. “With the presence information in Lync, we can see when people are available and how they want to be contacted. Since employees will forward their office number to their mobile phones, we can just use one number.” Lync will also dramatically reduce the charges for calls made between offices, which are currently routed through the PSTN. “Having a single solution so we can route inter-office calls over the network will generate huge savings for us,” adds Wolde.

With Lync, GEA employees can also avoid travel for meetings because they will use online meetings instead. “We didn’t use a lot of web conferencing in the past, but Lync makes it so easy that we see it becoming very popular,” notes Brexel.

Improved ProductivityLync should dramatically improve how GEA employees collaborate across offices and companies. “Lync provides a great way to streamline communications in the distributed environment at GEA,” notes Brexel. “We have employees in many countries, and these tools will enable them to work more closely together.”

GEA expects to see a substantial increase in the number of ad hoc and online meetings now that all employees can easily connect through Lync. “We will take advantage of many of the advanced features for meetings like polling and whiteboarding

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“Microsoft Lync Server offers many benefits, such as ease of implementation, user familiarity, and also delivers a significant ROI that enables us to build a strong business case for our clients.”

Alexandra Hanke, Alliance Manager, Damovo

because they are so easy to use with Lync. The services we used in the past may have had these features, but people were not able to learn them,” explains Brexel. “These capabilities will help to make our meetings more effective.”

Employees also find application sharing through Lync useful when they are working together on documents. “Desktop sharing is one of the most important features for GEA. We are using it all the time because it makes collaboration easy,” notes Parschau.

Using the Location feature, employees can more easily track where their colleagues are. “We have a lot of people who travel, and people can spend a lot of time just trying to locate someone,” explains Wolde. “With Lync, they can see if someone is at another office or at a customer site.”

The interoperation between Lync Server and the other Microsoft solutions at GEA like Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Exchange Server 2010 will also improve productivity and lead to higher adoption rates. With presence information available in most of the applications employees are using, it becomes more natural to merge communications into daily processes.

Once GEA decided to centralize its IT infrastructure, it moved quickly to provide employees with a standard set of solutions

to connect them throughout the company. GEA has found that the Microsoft desktop and server solutions help the company to unlock synergies between business units to reduce costs and increase revenues. GEA finds the Microsoft solutions it chose to be cost effective, especially with the discounts available through the Enterprise CAL Suite offered through the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

Microsoft Lync Server 2010Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ushers in a new connected user experience that transforms every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative and engaging and that is accessible from anywhere. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful, with a highly secure and reliable communications solution that works with existing tools and systems for easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility.

For more information about Microsoft Lync Server 2010 go to:www.microsoft.com/lync

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published November 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Office− Microsoft Lync 2010

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Lync Server 2010− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010− Microsoft SharePoint 2010− Microsoft System Center Operations

Manager 2007 R2

Hardware Polycom CX600 IP Phone AudioCodes Survivable Branch Appliance Jabra Headsets

Partners Damovo

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about Damovo products and services, call (44) (0)870 420 6300 or visit the website at: www.damovo.com

For more information about GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft, call (49) (234) 9 80-0 or visit the website at:www.geagroup.com

For more information about Polycom products and services, call (800) Polycom or visit the website at: www.polycom.com

For more information about Jabra products and services, call (800) 826-4656 or visit the website at: www.jabra.com

For more information about AudioCodes products and services, call (972) 3-976-4000 or visit the website at: www.audiocodes.com