Microsoft Lync Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

Sprint Nextel Supports Mobile Workforce and Reduces Costs with Enterprise Voice

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Telecommunications

Customer ProfileSprint Nextel is a principal provider of wireless and wireline communications services. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, Sprint has approximately 39,000 employees located around the globe.

Business SituationSprint wanted to improve the effectiveness of communication for employees, while reducing expensive local carrier and private branch exchange (PBX) maintenance costs.

SolutionBy deploying a unified communications solution from Microsoft, Sprint took the final step to free its mobile workforce from their desks and make it possible for them to work virtually anywhere.

Benefits Reduced costs Improved administration and support Opened the door for better

business processes Improved productivity and quality

of life

"Lync Server has enabled us to save nearly [U.S.]$13 million annually.”

Joe Hamblin, Manager of Unified Communications for Client Services, Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel is committed to providing the latest mobile tools and technology for employees, in addition to reducing the amount of real estate—and costs, both economic and environmental—to house them. In 2008, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce its environmental impact, improve employee productivity, and reduce costs and administration for its cumbersome telephony systems, Sprint deployed a Microsoft unified communications solution. Sprint recently upgraded that solution with Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide enhanced communication and collaboration capabilities to the entire company. In addition, it deployed enterprise voice capabilities for all 39,000 employees, which will help it to further increase the mobility and productivity of its workforce, reduce costs, and shrink its carbon footprint.

SituationHeadquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services, bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses, and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering, and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving more than 52 million customers at the end of the third second quarter of 2011 and the first 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone.

Sprint was the first U.S.-based wireless company to establish a clear environmental vision by publishing its long-term environmental goals. As part of its corporate responsibility initiative, Sprint aggressively promotes programs with a positive environmental impact. For example, it has an absolute greenhouse gas reduction goal of 15 percent and a renewable energy goal of 10 percent of its total energy use by 2017. The company’s corporate headquarters campus environment is 80 percent powered by wind power, and it currently ranks number 20 on the EPA Fortune 500 partners’ list for green power use. Additionally, Sprint was recently ranked highest among all U.S. telecom companies—number three overall on Newsweek’s 2011 Green Rankings for U.S. companies.

A big part of this effort was the company’s Mobile Workforce initiative. Sprint realized that reducing commute times for employees and reducing the amount of

office space—and power—workers used could have a real, positive impact on the environment. It also realized that having a mobile workforce could positively impact the business, because workers could be more productive no matter where they were located. With full executive support, the Sprint IT team partnered with business units and the real estate group to implement the initial changes for its Mobile Workforce program, using a top-down approach. As leases on physical space expired, the teams worked together to create smaller, open-area offices with flexible seating. “We wanted to use our technology to allow employees to work virtually anywhere they might imagine, but we also wanted to see a significant drop in real estate costs,” explains Scott Woodrome, Strategy Manager, Enterprise Real Estate at Sprint. “In our largest campus facility, we deployed Wi-Fi throughout, ensured that we had open seating, and implemented a ‘home pavilion’ with multiple areas to sit. We also created customer-friendly areas so employees could bring customers to the office.”

To provide the mobility employees demanded, the IT team wanted a communication solution beyond the traditional private branch exchange (PBX) system it was using, which was costly to operate, with ongoing connection charges, on-site maintenance fees, and annual upgrades. It decided to replace its costly PBX systems by using a software-powered approach from Microsoft with Sprint Global multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and SIP trunking. SIP trunking uses session initiation protocol (SIP) and real-time transport protocol (RTP) to pass telephony traffic from the enterprise network directly

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to a network service provider over an IP connection. Sprint Global MPLS is a network-based IP virtual private network (VPN) available globally across the Sprint global Tier 1 Internet backbone with reach to 165 countries.

Sprint had 489 PBX systems deployed across all its locations that it wanted to replace. After it decided on a network solution, Sprint deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 across the MPLS network to provide enterprise voice, instant messaging, presence, and conferencing (audio, video, and web) capabilities, along with integrated email and unified messaging capabilities available through its Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 deployment. “We selected Microsoft because we believed a communications solution must not only handle voice, but work with email and calendaring,” explains Joe Hamblin, Manager of Unified Communications for Client Services at Sprint. “Because we used Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for email, Microsoft helped us to unify our communications. Our goal was to minimize the number of vendors for client and server applications.”

SolutionTo better support its Mobile Workforce initiative, Sprint upgraded its communications solution with Microsoft

Lync Server 2010 for all 39,000 employees. Lync Server provides enhanced versions of the communications capabilities provided by Office Communications Server 2007 R2—presence, instant messaging, robust conferencing, and enterprise voice—in addition to improvements in topology, deployment, and management tools. Because its Microsoft enterprise voice solution has enabled Sprint to retire 489 PBX systems across the United States, 39,000 Sprint employees are using Lync for voice communication and no longer have desk phones. ”In 2006, if you had looked at our network, there were 489 PBXs scattered across the country,” says Hamblin. “We set out a vision and said we wanted to have all of these PBXs gone from the infrastructure and be left with two data centers—and that is what we have been able to accomplish.”

With the more flexible deployment options of Lync Server, Sprint deployed Lync Server at its headquarters in Overland Park and at a second location in Dallas to provide resilience and ensure continuous service in the case of an outage. The IT team took advantage of the Topology Builder tool for Lync Server to help design its final topology and configuration settings. “With Lync Server deployed at two sites, we have automatic resilience, and we can easily move all users within 24 hours if necessary

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“With Lync Server deployed at two sites, we have automatic resilience, and we can easily move all users within 24 hours if necessary and guarantee that they have full functionality.”

Joe Hamblin, Manager of Unified Communications for Client Services,

Sprint Nextel

and guarantee that they have full functionality,” says Hamblin.

Sprint is deploying Lync Server internationally to provide enterprise voice worldwide. In Europe, it will use its own European SIP trunking service to provide voice connections through Lync. At its offices in Asia and Latin America, Sprint will install survivable branch appliances (SBAs) to provide voice connections. SBAs are cost-effective media gateways hosting the Microsoft Survivable Branch Appliance software package and providing public switched telephone network connectivity in the event of wide area network failure. The company plans to use SBAs at its branch offices to provide a redundant voice connection in the case of a network outage. Employees can also continue to use the presence and instant messaging capabilities in Lync.

Another Lync capability that is helping Sprint to retire its PBX systems is E911. To implement the E911 capabilities, the company is working with Connexon Telecom, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network. The solution interoperates with the native E911 capabilities in Lync Server to help ensure 911 calls and accurate location information are delivered to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), simplify E911 management, and meet all state and local E911 legislation.

Sprint employees are using voice hardware specifically designed for use with Lync Server to replace their traditional desk phones. About 80 percent of employees use headsets to place and manage calls and conferences through the Microsoft

Lync 2010 client on the desktop. The other 20 percent use IP phones that provide capabilities such as directory search and presence information through Lync. “The variety of phones and headsets available is a great benefit of Lync,” explains Woodrome. “Traditionally 70 percent of the cost of a PBX deployment was the handsets. By using Lync, we are no longer tied to proprietary devices, so we can negotiate with our vendors.”

Sprint continues to apply many of the same careful change management techniques it used when it originally introduced its Microsoft unified communications solution. It implements the technology in advance of reconfiguring office space, so employees do not feel overwhelmed working in a new mobile environment. “We keep people informed of ongoing changes,” says Hamblin. “We generally provide less content at one time, but with more frequency to keep from overwhelming them.” Although Sprint originally implemented training programs when it deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2, it found that most employees adopted the technology very quickly, a trend that has continued with its Lync deployment.

Through the unified Lync client, employees now have a single interface where they can view presence, send instant messages, place voice calls, or set up ad hoc collaboration sessions and online meetings. They can take advantage of enhanced contact information with social networking features such as Skill Search, a capability available through the interoperation of Lync Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, with which people can find

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“The Sprint Mobile Workforce continues to evolve with Lync. It has so many tools and features that make it easy for people to be mobile.”

Scott Woodrome, Strategy Manager, Enterprise Real Estate, Sprint Nextel

subject matter experts in other departments and regions. Sprint also deployed location servers that enable Lync to detect employees’ locations automatically based on their network connection. At a glance, employees can see location information for coworkers through the Lync client. “People really pay attention to presence and location,” says Woodrome. “Now they can see not only if someone is available but where that person is, so they do not waste time walking over to another office.”

Employees also have more unified, robust desktop sharing and conferencing capabilities through the Lync client. To support increased conferencing and help reduce travel, Sprint plans to integrate its 30 Polycom video rooms with Lync Server for HD video conferencing. Participants can join video conferences in which up to 16 participants can appear on screen at the same time. Sprint also plans to retire its current audio conferencing service and use Lync as its only service.

The Sprint IT team is using extended management capabilities available with Lync Server. Using the Windows PowerShell command-line interface, the IT team can easily deploy and manage Lync Server, and through the web-based control panel, it can manage Lync Server from anywhere on the corporate network. By using role-based access control (RBAC), the IT team can more easily delegate tasks, which supports its overall initiative to move to a tiered help-desk model. The IT team also installed the Lync

Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager for monitoring and alerts.

Going forward, Sprint has several long term strategies that involve using Lync to improve business processes. It will migrate some call center operations to Lync Server. Sprint appreciates the many choices it has for solutions from the Lync Partner Ecosystem and is currently evaluating Altigen ACD Max and Clarity Connect. Sprint is also transferring its response groups to the Response Group Service in Lync Server, which it can use to configure workflows that route and queue incoming calls to the proper channels. Finally, it plans to use the Lync application programming interfaces (APIs) to develop several communications-enabled business processes (CEBP) that integrate Lync with customer records management, human resources, or IT systems.

BenefitsBy implementing Lync Server enterprise voice, Sprint continues to take a significant step forward in its Mobile Workforce and environmental initiatives. “The Sprint Mobile Workforce continues to evolve with Lync, “says Woodrome. “It has so many tools and features that make it easy for

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people to be mobile. With unified communications, your phone and all your communication capabilities are with you all the time, wherever you are, and when you do come into the office, all you need is an Internet connection, which you can get anywhere in the building with Wi-Fi.” Sprint has reduced both its operational costs and its environmental impact, in addition to providing a more productive, flexible work environment for its employees.

Reduced CostsSprint has about 100 mobile zone locations that use Sprint mobile devices with 3G/4G capabilities. “The implementation of the Sprint Mobile Workforce has resulted in [U.S.]$30 million a year in net savings simply because we need less square footage,” says Woodrome. “So a reduction of 1.5 million square feet times an annual rent of around $20 per square foot equals $30 million.”

“Lync Server has enabled us to save nearly $13 million annually,” explains Hamblin. “We eliminated costs for our PBX systems by about $2.5 million a year in avoiding upgrades, and another $6.7 million in recurring circuit costs.”

Furthermore, Sprint continues to save money on solutions that it has replaced

with Lync Server, such as its audio conferencing system. Hamblin says, “We were spending more than $300,000 a month in our conference bridging, which we have eliminated entirely with Lync.” By implementing Lync as its primary conferencing service, Sprint saves U.S.$4 million in conferencing costs annually. It can also more effectively negotiate costs with vendors that provide IP headsets and phones.

Sprint has also reduced overall utility costs, because the smaller office spaces require less energy to heat and cool. Finally, more mobile employees mean fewer people in the office using electricity. All of this adds up to about $700,000 a year in additional savings.

Improved Administration and SupportBy deploying Lync enterprise voice and retiring its PBX systems, Sprint is changing its internal help-desk and support models to reflect its unified communications model. “We are taking more of a cross-platform approach,” says Woodrome. “We used to have 30 voice engineers just to manage our PBX systems. Now we have 22 employees to help manage all aspects of our unified communications solution that includes Lync Server, Exchange Server, and SharePoint Server.”

With organizational changes to the voice and server support staff in addition to Lync capabilities such as RBAC, the IT team has improved support across the organization. Hamblin adds, “With the administrative capabilities in Lync Server, we feel more comfortable blending teams with different

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IT Cost Savings BenefitReduce local exchange carrier charges $6,700,000Reduce PBX maintenance costs $2,500,000Reduce audio conferencing $4,000,000Reduce electricity costs $700,000Total $13,900,000

expertise to get the best of both worlds. That way, we can manage and troubleshoot based on the end user experience instead of silos of expertise.”

Opened Door for Better Business ProcessesSprint sees the opportunity to integrate Lync Server with its current business systems to help improve processes across the organization. “In combination with partner solutions, Lync gives us the ability to bring call center users on board and provide them with the reporting and management tools they are accustomed to,” says Hamblin. “By leveraging Lync, they can work from anywhere, which is always a big driver for us.”

Hamblin continues, “Long term, Lync gives us a strategic advantage as we start looking into CEBP and we take those same presence and click-to-call, click-to-communicate capabilities and start driving them into business processes.”

Improved Productivity and Quality of LifeBy using the Lync unified client on the desktop, Sprint employees can be even more productive than before. “Microsoft Lync allows us to be more productive, more collaborative with our teams, to be able to join a conference call without any numbers or without any codes—you can just click a button,” says Woodrome. With the click of a mouse, employees can move from an instant messaging session to a phone call to an online meeting where they can share documents and applications. In addition, features such as Skill Search make it easier

for employees to reach out to coworkers and collaborate. “Ninety percent of the people in this program tell us they are more productive, happier with their job, and have a better work-life balance,” says Woodrome. “And when we look at the large sales force that operates in our commercial offices, our assumption is that a mobile worker produces more revenue than a non-mobile worker due to increased collaboration with the customer.”

By upgrading to Lync Server, Sprint has moved even closer to meeting its goals to reduce its environmental impact and ensure a “virtually anywhere, virtually anytime” mobile workforce. “When we implemented unified communications,” says Woodrome, “we had an opportunity to further expand on the definition of mobility, leveraging the technology that Sprint has introduced to business customers. Now nothing ties a worker to a particular spot in an office environment.”

Microsoft Lync Server 2010Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ushers in a new connected user experience that transforms every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative, and engaging; and that is accessible from anywhere. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful, with a highly secure and reliable communications system that works with existing tools and systems for easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility.

For more information about Microsoft Lync Server 2010, go to:

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Sprint Nextel products and services, visit the website at: www.sprint.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published December 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Lync Server 2010

Microsoft Office− Microsoft Lync 2010

www.microsoft.com/lync

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