Leading Russian Electric Company Generates Operating Efficiency with Cisco Unified Communications

OGK-4 connects more than 5,000 employees across multiple offices with countrywide multiservice communications system

MOSCOW, Russia - OAO OGK-4, the fourth largest electric company in Russia, has completed the transformation of its nationwide telephone network with the deployment of Cisco’s Unified Communications to provision a highly secure, reliable and scalable multiservice telecommunications system. 5,300 employees across five power plants and the head office will now have seamless access to companywide resources to boost efficiency of business processes, raise the quality of customer services, and reduce management and operational costs.

Set up by RAO EES Russia in 2005, OAO OGK-4 manages its nationwide offices centrally from an executive center in Moscow, with 350 employees. The company needed to set up a common numbering system centrally that was scalable and highly secure in providing location-agnostic access to all resources. Simultaneously, modernization of the existing telephony system to support advanced services, such as integration with video conferencing and business applications, was seen as a must in a very competitive market environment.

Pavel Pestryakov, CIO, OAO OGK-4, said: “OGK-4 reviewed its network requirements with a view on the latest developments in the worldwide telecommunications market, and Cisco solutions were an obvious choice to set up an advanced telephony system, optimize management processes, accelerate interaction between offices and branches, as well as reduce OPEX. As the wholesale electricity market in Russia becomes highly competitive, it is necessary to ensure we have a unified view and access to our widespread resources in order to stay ahead of competition. Seeing the operational efficiencies achieved by using Infocell’s IP solution, OGK-4 has standardized on Cisco products for all our branches and facilities.”

Cisco Premier Partner Infocell implemented a solution based on Cisco Unified Communications. With the Cisco solution, OGK-4 was able to converge its voice and data networks and consolidate all telephone lines into one common system to save money on local and long-haul telephone calls. Employees are now also able to easily move between remote locations with location-agnostic Cisco Unified IP Phones installed across OGK-4 offices.

“Through custom configuration and delivery of the Cisco Unified Communications solution, Infocell was able to address the pain points of the customer in unifying the telecommunications infrastructure across such a large geography,” stated Dmitry Cheremushkin, CTO, Infocell. “Together with OAO OGK-4 experts, we were able to turn traditional analog telephony into a business support tool, driving down operational costs. And, OGK-4 also has the peace of mind with Infocell’s full range of services.”

“As business transcends geographical boundaries and the market becomes highly competitive, unifying communications infrastructure has become the need of the hour for organizations to thrive,” stated Robert Agee, vice president Cisco, Russia “The ability of Cisco solutions to directly address the immediate telecommunications challenges of OGK-4, reduce costs and phone outages, and also provision for future expansion, demonstrates the business gains to be had from unified communications.”

The modernized OGK-4 phone network uses Cisco Unified Communications Manager to provide each user with advanced services, such as automatic call routing, automatic bandwidth management, time-based call management, interactive voice response (IVR), access to individual or enterprise directories, HTML assistant on a phone screen, as well as multi-language interfacing. With centralized enterprise-wide management capabilities, it is now also easy to add more users and new applications, as well as implement Cisco TelePresence.
About OGK-4

The open joint stock company Forth Generation Company of the Wholesale Electricity Market (OGK-4) operates five power generation plants with the total capacity of 8,630 MW, including Surgutskaya GRES-2 (4,800 MW, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District), Berezovskaya GRES (1,500 MW, Krasnoyarsk territory), Shaturskaya GRES (1,100 MW, Moscow region), Smolenskaya GRES (630 MW, Smolensk region) and Yayvinskaya GRES (600 MW, Perm territory). 76% of OGK-4 shares belong to E.ON Russia Power GmbH - a 100% affiliate of E.ON AG, coordinating corporation’s energy business in Russia. For more information, please visit www.ogk-4.ru.
About Infocell

Infocell is a highly professional dynamic company supporting customer business in the area of infrastructural integration and information technologies. Detailed information about the company and its services is published at www.infocell.ru.
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