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About

IT architecture and planning for Mazars

The company implements a Microsoft unified communications and messaging solution.

In summary

Customer: Mazars
Web site: http://www.mazars.co.za
Customer size: tbc
Country or region: South Africa
Industry: Auditing, accounting, tax and advisory services
Partner: Galdon Data

Customer profile: Mazars is an accounting company with a long history of professional excellence in South Africa. Its commitment to the care of its clients and their businesses is strongly reflected in the loyalty customers show them - some client relationships have been maintained for over 50 years.

The company is a mid-tier firm with the power and presence to rival the world's largest accounting firms, but with the agility to respond to clients' needs quickly and decisively.

Mazars South Africa operates from eight offices with 750 staff.

Software and services: Microsoft Lync as a PABX of choice
VOIP platform
Conferencing facilities
Instant Messaging
Microsoft Exchange

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

Mazars, a global audit, tax and advisory firm, wanted to replace its current infrastructure with a more complete solution, as well as updating its communications infrastructure.

Situation

Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) met many of the requirements the company had, but it wanted all its enterprise server applications to be virtualised.

“There was also a need to include small branch offices in Mazars communications infrastructure,” commented Glenn Hurlow, Business Technology Manager. “These included videoconferencing and a collaboration solution that included application sharing and whiteboards. There were also a few enterprise voice features that were missing from OCS, such as delegation and call parking. The other area that the company wanted to invest in was a solution around the use of headsets. Staff members found the audio settings in the OCS client challenging to adjust and very difficult to change between different audio devices.

“The company also wanted to be able to navigate Exchange via voice commands to make them less time consuming and allow staff member to be more productive.”

Solution

The solution was to move from Office Communications Server to Lync and Exchange UM.

Benefits

The transition to Lync and Exchange solved all of the company's issues.

“We were able to virtualise all the server roles in the Lync stack, enabling us to save on hardware and power usage,” said Hurlow.

“It has also enabled us to replace existing PABXes in our small branches where they had become obsolete. We are now able to hold effective videoconferences between branches and to deliver training and support via the application-sharing and white-boarding features of Lync.”

With the purchase of PolycomRoundtable devices for the Cape Town and Johannesburg offices, the company is expected to deliver a positive return on investment within the next six months.

In the enterprise voice area, features such as delegation and call park have filled the remaining gaps in its previous solution.

The adoption of the softphone and headsets by staff members have been greatly enhanced because of the ease of use of the Lync client and its effective handling of audio settings.

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Editorial contacts

Elmaree September
GaldonData
(+27) 21 525 7162
elmareec@galdon.co.za