Avaya Unified Communications Help Companies Around the World Improve Business While Reducing Environmental Impact

Going green with Avaya Unified Communications and Contact Center solutions reduce carbon footprint and costs while improving service, productivity and flexibility

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – With companies and organizations seeking practical ways to reduce their impact on the environment, Avaya Unified Communications and Contact Center Solutions are enabling them to “go green” while simultaneously addressing other business priorities. Around the world, businesses and organizations are reducing carbon emissions and improving customer service, productivity and flexibility using communications technologies from Avaya.

To help businesses and organizations determine how much energy they can save with Avaya technologies, the company recently launched a new Green website and an energy savings calculator. The tool calculates savings in kilowatt energy consumption, carbon emissions and gasoline consumption in both English and metric units.

Among the ways Avaya helps companies and organizations reduce carbon emissions is by decreasing the amount of hardware needed for communications. Vanke, one of the largest property developers in China, consolidated communications infrastructure by eliminating standalone PBXs at each of its 20 branch offices. Instead, the company centralized core communications operations at its headquarters and extended Avaya Unified Communications over an IP Telephony network to the branches. The move reduced the requirements for administration, maintenance and power consumption while enabling faster, more consistent service, increasing collaboration and improving business continuity.

A Norway-based telecommunications provider, Ventelo, accumulated a variety of communications technologies over the years to meet increasing customer demand. The environment was not only hardware-intensive, key customer service and workflow processes were largely paper-driven due to the limited ability to integrate diverse communications. Now, Avaya Contact Center applications have reduced hardware, centralized customer communications and information and enabled a streamlined, virtually, paper-free environment for greatly improved service and productivity.

“Since rationalizing communications technologies using the Avaya solution, Ventelo has become virtually paper free. They’re helping us to continue our efforts in being a greener company,” said Arne Horvei, manager, Marketing and Communications, Ventelo.

Avaya Communication Manager telephony software makes it possible to build an efficient communications foundation that supports up to 36,000 endpoints across hundreds of locations with a single pair of centralized servers. The software builds in a number of capabilities – features, functions, safety and security – that other vendors can only provide by adding more servers. Less hardware translates to reduced power consumption for both the hardware and cooling requirements.

Growing demand for Avaya Unified Communications Solutions for Remote Workers reflects how the solutions fulfill multiple objectives for a broad range of businesses and public sector organizations. More and more companies are equipping employees for telecommuting – a move that can improve productivity and morale and avoid the creation of more than 1,000 lbs. of carbon when just one employee telecommutes one day each week for a year. Carbon savings result from reduction in facility requirements and gas consumption.

In the two most populous cities in North and South America, one particular solution solved service challenges for one organization and inspired a new business opportunity for another.

In New York City, Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) has more than 30,000 patients daily under its care. VNSNY faced significant challenges finding certified nurses willing and able to come into the city to answer calls made to the 24-hour service desk, especially for later shifts. A work-at-home program using Avaya technologies helped solve staffing and business continuity issues, as well as promoting a commitment to the environment.

“We understand the importance of environmental issues,” said Randy Cleghorne, director of IT infrastructure, VNSNY. “One of the reasons we initially looked at teleworking as an organization is to have a greener environment. We feel we should be leaders in this area whether it’s specific to our employees here, co-workers, neighbors or the individuals we serve.”

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the average daily commute is more than 2.5 hours and average travel speed is 15 miles per hour, Virtual Call established an entire business using home-based call center agents. Starting with 10 agents in 2007, the company is on track to reach 500 agents by December 2008. When creating Virtual Call, the founders thought beyond strategic aspects such as low-cost operations and high-quality workforce.

“Avaya Home Agent was just what we needed for enabling agents to work from home,” said Willian Balboni, founder, Virtual Call. “The quality increase in customer service brought positive results to the company. The agents have a higher life quality since they don’t have to commute anymore, and both the company and the agents are reducing carbon emissions. The best part is the amount of investment we made to turn these significant benefits into real achievement for our company and our customers was very small.”

When it comes to helping the environment, small businesses can have a big impact since they cumulatively account for the 99 percent of the total number of businesses world wide. Mindwave Research in Austin, Texas, found teleworking yielded major green savings. The 21-person marketing research company reduced office space by nearly 70 percent after enabling more than half the company’s employees to become full-time teleworkers. Mindwave’s IT manager, Jason Snook, estimates the company saves more than $11000 per month in reduced rent and energy consumption. At the same time, employees keep green in their pockets and the planet by eliminating the commute.

Avaya’s Green website features podcasts by Visiting Nurse Services and others, customer case studies, fast facts about helping the environment and more. Both the website and calculator can be found at http://www.avaya.com/campaigns/usa/Green/index.html.