Skillsets

• Business process engineering
• Program management

Technologies

Avaya, Cisco, IPC, Exchange, Verizon, AT&T, BT, COLT, Sprint, PCCW, Telstra, China Telecom, Tandberg, Oracle, Windows, RIM BlackBerry, Citrix

Worker Mobility

Case Study

Background

Business growth created need for global expansion. Critical business functions were relocating away from high cost corporate headquarters. Application and data needs in non-corporate offices were growing. Regulatory pressures challenged a distributed architecture. Business users desired better collaboration tools to reduce travel and improve real-time decision making. Productivity, outside of corporate headquarters, was being impacted by the “slowness” in applications brought about by latency, bad connections, and slow networks. Connecting to the corporate VPN from hotels was difficult and caused some people to go back to dial-up connectivity. Security requirements were growing and hurt productivity gains. Global IT staffing was increasing creating opportunities for improved support.

What We Did

Previously point solutions deployed individually, with many good solutions implemented. Using a holistic approach, requirements were gathered from business users (including regulatory), IT (encompassing security), and applications development. An inventory of deployed solutions was taken, a gap analysis was developed, and an envisioned state was created. Dependencies, timelines, and budgets were socialized and consensus was reached on a strategy.

Corporate

• Implementation of a global MPLS network
• Deployed company-wide VoIP solution giving travelers transparent access to phone services and dramatically reducing long distance costs
• Added network protocol accelerators and remote file caching for improved web and file performance
• Designed and implemented user experience monitoring systems for all global offices
• Installed VoIP trading turrets and provided real-time connectivity between trading floors
• Utilized global support resources to provide 7x24 “follow-the-sun” support
• Enhanced capacity, support, and reliability

Traveler

• Travelers were outfitted with either small/lightweight or faster/presentation quality laptops
• Secured laptops through encryption and improved virus and intrusion detection software
• Global smartphones with email and phone services replaced global cell phones
• Identified technology-friendly hotels and documented VPN access methods
• Simplified, strengthened, and reduced the cost of security tokens

Email & File Servers

• Replicated Email servers in key (global) offices
• Implemented global replicated and redundant file services
• Added local internet connectivity to remote offices improving performance and reducing WAN traffic

Audio/Video

• Improved video conferencing through high definition, desktop, and web-based access
• Outsourced audio conferencing for better global coverage and capacity

What We Achieved

IT was able to keep pace with the growth of the business. Worker productivity and geographic transparency improved. Critical business functions could be performed anywhere/anytime. New/updated office buildouts were faster and easier as technical needs became standardized. Advanced connectivity and application sharing created opportunities to use lower cost, outsourced business and IT resources in India.

There were many IT benefits to implementing a Worker Mobility program. Changing the measurement from systems metrics to “user experience” caused more comprehensive solutions to be implemented. Some solutions (i.e., co-location of Microsoft Exchange servers), while not always preferred by IT staff, became obvious as simple solutions to complex problems. Point solutions were challenged and enhanced, as the holistic point-of-view was used as the benchmark.

Contact Harvard Partners to learn more about our Worker Mobility consulting services »

Summary