Initiating a Successful Project for VoIPTelco Sourcing Advisors, LLC

By Jeff Salazar

Where Do You Begin?

• Select a Project Manager.• Determine company culture and existing systems.• Divide your project into phases.• Uncover initial requirements, assumptions, risks, constraints and existing

agreements.• Assess project and product feasibility within the given constraints.• Create measurable objectives.• Understand the business case.• Develop your project charter.• Identify stakeholders, and determine expectations, influence and impact.

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: RMC “Rita’s Process Chart”, 2013 2

Challenges, Risks and Critical Success Factors

In 2006, Mark Hurd, then chairman and CEO at HP, said ‘the number one risk factor in any organization is lack of accurate information’.

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Axelos “ITIL Service Strategy”, 2011 Edition. 3

IT Spending, How Do You Stack Up?

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Gartner

• The average company spends about 4% of gross revenue on IT.

• The industries that spend the most on IT are financial services,IT and telecommunications.

• The typical firm spends about $6,600 per year per employee on IT.

• IT head count comprises 5% to 7% of the total employee population in the typical enterprise.

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Operational Benefits of IP Telephony

In this example a university with $58 million in annual revenue with four locations that required 800 handsets.

• Moves, Adds and Changes.

• Voice Trunks

• Equipment Maintenance

• Local Loops

Five-year Financial Gain: $2,699,186

Savings Category

Annual Savings

MAC $107,429

Voice Trunks $493,071

Equipment Maintenance $14,286

Local Loops $30,343

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Nemertes Research 5

Best Practice: Align with PMBOK® Framework

Initiating Process Group

Planning Process Group

Executing Process Group

Monitoring and

Controlling Process Group

Closing Process Group

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: PMI PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition, 2013

Have your service provider prepare a VoIP project plan that meets the specific business requirements and goals of the initiative and completion of the deliverables.

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Focus on ResultsConduct hands-on meetings to share information concerning the impending rollout.Ensure adequate tools and templates exist to support the execution of activities.

Optimize Project Pace and ScheduleMinimize disruption by planning your IP transition to follow your LAN infrastructure upgrades by a few weeks.

Leadership Alignment: Initiate a Project Web Site

Create a SharePoint Web Site

• Create a SharePoint that will serve as a central source for anyone who wants information on the project.

• Explain how the organization will differ as a result.

• State the project benefits.

Provide Status Reports

• Percentage of users on new system.

• “IP Phone Tip of the Week” and answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)

• General information: timelines, project scope, project goals.

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Cisco “The Road to IP Telephony”, 2004 9

Best Practice: Day 2 Handoff and Support Team

The key to a successful handoff as you migrate from PBX to IP Telephony is to have a support team in place that has been involved on the project from the beginning that is separate from your team installing the new phone system.

Best practice: Implement an ITIL change management software system and ITIL processeswith three levels of support.

Tier 1 – Help desk with focus on ‘first call’ resolution that takes the initial users call, opens a support ticket and provides basic support and troubleshooting.

Tier 2 – Consists of multiple skill sets and includes ‘feet on the street’ for break/fix, configurationissues and repair, and is staffed 24 hours a day.

Tier 3 – The highest level of escalation for VoIP. A hybrid team is best, with a mix of Voice and Data professionals. Includes the design engineers, and people involved in the original design.

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 10

What to Watch Out For

Disconnection and removal of critical phones that are unidentified or unassigned can backfire on your project team.

Not conducting quality gates with your voice/data engineers during the final two weeks before rollout.

Technical issues related to the LAN that arise during the day of installation.

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 11

Clean House

Validate the talents on your team are well versed in all aspects of your VoIP project before you begin. Trace and disconnect all noncritical lines that are identified or unassigned.Understand and make changes to your operational security policy.Put in place a standard naming convention for identifying phones on your network (lobby phones, break room phones, emergency phones, etc.)

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 12

Thank you!

www.telcosourcing.com +1 (855) 843 5227 (toll-free from the United States) +1 (303) 578 1146 (outside the United States)

© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 13