Better Communication & Collaboration with Lync: The Barnardos’ Story Anne Collins Information Support Services Manager Barnardos New Zealand
May 12, 2015
Better Communication & Collaboration with Lync:
The Barnardos’ Story
Anne Collins
Information Support Services ManagerBarnardos New Zealand
Better Communication and
Collaboration with Lync 2010The Barnardos’ Story…
Barnardos NZ
• SME Charity working in the areas of Early Childhood
Education and Social services in New Zealand
• “Children Come First” – we provide education and
assistance to families and children in order to
develop children’s potentials
• 80 offices throughout NZ
• 900 employees
The Drivers
• Old second hand phone systems failing
• Organisation dispersed (80 offices), no phone
integration, difficult to communicate => limited sense
of “belonging”
• Staff technically challenged / resistant (social
workers, older teachers)
• Network connections can have dubious quality
outside main centres & expensive for QoS
• Microsoft Lync running
unified communications
across the data network,
with 3 main PSTN gateways
out to the telephone
network (for BCP)
• Pilot completed in OCS and
now half way through
upgrading offices to Lync
for full rollout.
Solution Selected
Results
• Intuitive phone system integrated with mobiles and
Outlook, positive uptake
• Staff are using shared desktops for planning sessions,
budget reviews , remote training
• Peer to peer video conferencing allows
managers to hold VOIP / visual meetings with
remote staff e.g. Fundraising, HR
• Running across ADSL broadband links which
connect 80% of our offices, no QoS
• Mobile integration allows more efficiencies
• Even the smallest office is connected
Success Factors
• Got technical Project Manager that knew what
“VOIP” meant
• Used most negative person in Senior Management
Team on project panel
• Sold as an extension to email
• Rolled out pilot to the biggest offices first (pilot)
=> immediate savings
=> won over the senior managers
• Training customised for user level of understanding
But project currently slowed because of shortage of
Lync skills with vendors