Major Law Firm Reduced Costs and Enhanced Productivity with Cisco Unified Communications
IP Telephony and Videoconferencing Integrate Souza, Cescon Barrieu & Flesch’s five offices. Expectation Is to Register 30% Savings on Telephone Costs
Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 20, 2014 – Law firm Souza, Cescon, Barrieu & Flesch reduced telephone costs and increased productivity through the adoption of the Cisco® Unified Communications solution implemented by 2S, a Cisco systems integrator partner. The law firm has integrated its five units with IP telephony, videoconferencing, security and Cisco TelePresence® tools, plus all the infrastructure required for the adoption of BYOD – Bring Your Own Device. The company expects to register savings up to 30% from long distance calls only.
In 2013, a renovation at the Rio de Janeiro unit led the office technology team to consider integrated network solutions in order to meet the demands for reduced telephone costs and increased productivity delivered by the general board.
The new ICT (Information and Communications Technology) infrastructure projects have been premised on delivering greater comfort for both internal and external users, regardless of whether or not they were at their service and production workstations. Thus, several small projects that previously ran separately were integrated into the proposed revision of the wired network and Wi-Fi installation, in order to support a new unified communications system, supporting data, voice and videoconferencing in all five offices.
“The solution was triggered by the need to move offices, but we already had felt the necessity to upgrade our telephone system, and the renovation in our Rio de Janeiro unit was an opportunity to review the entire infrastructure. We assessed that it would be more efficient to adopt a single, integrated solution, and we, therefore, chose Cisco for the job,” said Roberto Lima, partner at the law firm.
Virtually achieving all infrastructure layers, the project was initiated by renewing the wired network with managed switches, and the Access Points and Wi-Fi resource management installation. “Following this initial stage, we worked on the firewall implementation integrating the offices, while implementing the IP telephony environment,” said Rafael Alves, IT manager, about the videoconferencing rooms’ integration.
There were 400 IP telephone endpoints installed with videoconferencing and Jabber® communication software available for all employees, across desktops and smartphones. Due to the physical distance among the five offices, these tools helped increase productivity and reduce costs with both travels and especially telephone, as long distance calls began to be routed by the system and counted as local calls.
“A major technology contribution to the day-to-day corporate environment is the potential to enable great resources optimization and increased companies productivity. Cisco’s Unified Communications Solutions can produce more with less, providing faster processes, greater data transmission reliability, and access security”, said Ana Claudia Plihal, Commercial Director at Cisco.
Implementation and BYOD
The last stage involved the inclusion of Cisco WebEx® for virtual conferences, and the Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine), wireless and wired network segmentation platform, providing comfort and security for both Souza, Cescon Barrieu & Flesch internal and external clients. Through Cisco’s ISE access policies management, the entire network could be controlled, so when unregistered devices accessed the network, they could be automatically directed to exclusive access to the Internet.
“The main feature of this project was to successfully implement Cisco’s unified solutions and technology. It started with the wired upgrade necessity, which evolved to wireless and firewall implementation, and grew to a complete IT project that has stirred the entire company,” explained João Paulo Wolf, 2S Partnership and Alliances director.
Another interesting point, according to the integrator partner executive, is the fact that it involves all areas of Cisco solutions, including UCS servers used for the collaborative systems and WebEx® installation. Wolf also anticipates that 2015 holds the second phase of the project, when the data center will be updated with Cisco UCS® servers.
Today, the law firm counts on the same network infrastructure, one channel to serve all office unities and a second one fully available to guests. The Wi-Fi and wired networks segmentation are essential for the adoption of BYOD, enabling employees to use their own devices to access the corporate network, which requires complex security standards.
In addition to the operational efficiency delivered by the implementation of this project, the firm also expects to get the return on investment (ROI) within the disbursement period. “We chose a three year lease expecting ROI to occur during this period,” informed the lawyer.
About Souza, Cescon Barrieu & Flesch Law Firm
Souza, Cescon Barrieu & Flesch is one of the most important and recognized law firms in Brazil, with five office units across the country, located in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia and Salvador.
Souza, Cescon Barrieu & Flesch represents both domestic and foreign clients, large enterprise and financial institutions as well as foreign governments and various public companies listed on the BM&F BOVESPA and other exchanges.
About 2S
Since 1992, 2S is an infrastructure solutions integrator for the enterprise market, committed to provide technologically innovative solutions that help transform clients’ businesses, and IT optimization focused on clients’ increased productivity and cost reduction.
Their services portfolio includes Collaboration solutions, Datacenter Management, Mobility, Managed Services, Maintenance, and Networking Solutions, as well as Licensing and Cloud Services.
For seven consecutive years (since 2006) 2S has been rated one of the best places to work in IT and Telecom in Brazil, ranking conducted by the Great Place to Work Institute. (www.2s.com.br)
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.
