Recruitment and training provider cuts call costs by 40%

Recruitment, education and training provider Angus Knight deployed IP telephony to cut call costs, ease administration and more quickly roll out voice connectivity to new sites.

The Angus Knight Group is the parent company of Jobfind Centres Australia, a leading provider of the Australian Government’s Job Services Australia services for job seekers; LearnNow, an e-learning platform; and SumTotal and Omni, which provide corporate education and training services. It employs 670 staff and provides 600 terminals for job seekers at more than 130 metropolitan, rural and remote locations across Australia.

Angus Knight was struggling with the high cost and management of more than two dozen separate PABX phone systems across its 55 locations across Australia. In December 2007, the company began a business transformation project, which involved moving its staff, PCs and telecommunications equipment to new centres, some in remote areas.

At these centres, job seekers can use computers and telephones to search for jobs online, make phone calls, fill out job applications and complete online training - a key part of the Jobfind business.

Greg Maginnity, Infrastructure Manager, Angus Knight said: “Our voice systems were offline constantly and we needed to move to a standard telephony system that was more flexible and scalable ...”

Angus Knight engaged Avaya partner IP Voice Solutions to deploy Avaya IP Office IP500 and Avaya IP Office IP406 VoIP systems, designed for small and medium businesses. Angus Knight also deployed Avaya Compact Contact Centre, an application that provides IT helpdesk staff with live and historical call statistics from software running on a wall-mounted plasma screen.

The company also rolled out Avaya Voice Mail Pro, software that provides automated voice recording and email integration, and Avaya Phone Manager, a desktop application that indicates the status of any handset on the network. There are more than 800 Avaya 5600 Series IP Telephones at 55 full-time and 30 part-time sites.

Angus Knight is also deploying Avaya VPN phones, which include software that enables staff to plug their phone into any internet port at a remote location such as their home. This provides them with voice connectivity and access to their contact lists, calls and messages.

The Avaya IP Office system allows Angus Knight staff to make free internal telephone calls to any staff member with a four-digit extension across the company’s 55 full-time and 30 part-time locations. This has reduced overall call costs by about 40%. The Avaya IP Office conferencing facility has also enabled Angus Knight to reduce teleconferencing costs by 93%.

Staff also use the Avaya one-X Mobility application to extend desk phone functionality to their mobile phones. Staff can make and receive internal and external calls, check voicemail and conduct conferences from their mobile phones when they are on the road, just as they would if they were in the office.

The Avaya IP Office system provides redundancy features that ensure Angus Knight’s phone system stays online if the company’s ISDN link fails. If this occurs, calls are automatically routed over the IP network with no impact on incoming and outgoing calls.

“Because the system is always online, we can be confident that we don’t need to add extra staff,” said Maginnity. “We only need one system administrator to manage a voice network that is used by 670 people and do the relevant upgrades as needed.”