Orange to juice up digital workforce at JTI

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Orange Business Services has been chosen by JTI (Japan Tobacco International) to transform its digital working environment by moving its existing communications landscape to a fully managed unified communications solution based on Microsoft Lync 2013. JTI is an international tobacco manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Lync-based solution will unify communications for 20,000 users with IM, Presence and Web conferencing services while 12,000 users will be enabled with Lync Enterprise voice and desktop video services, integrated with videoconferencing rooms, as the announcement explains. Orange will manage a hosted architecture and the entire ecosystem, including Sonus gateways and thousands of Polycom VVX Business Media Phones. An additional 3,000 mobile devices, tablets and smartphones will be Lync enabled.

This managed Lync solution is said to enable JTI to bring the right people into the conversation very quickly, improves the speed of decision-making and communication-enabled business processes. In addition, JTI's mobile workforce will be supported with the same powerful unified communications tools no matter what device they use or where they are working.

"Ease-of-deployment is a key requirement for enterprises evaluating UC solutions," said Brian Riggs, analyst, Ovum. "Having a UC solution that can be deployed across all geographies and customized to a company's business requirements by a single global integrator is among the topmost requirements for large enterprises. Companies deploying Microsoft Lync have a strong need for comprehensive consulting services, such as those offered by Orange Business Services, that create the best-suited UC solution with the highest level of security and expertise at the critical crossroads of networks, devices and IT."

Guilain Rogg, JTI Global Technical Center VP, said: "To ensure the success of this major initiative, we selected Orange because of their expertise and knowledge about the existing environment to create a long-term strategy and associated roadmap. Their global capabilities support our geographical footprint and they have the ability to deliver end-to-end services, from transformation to operation, including management of all underlying service blocks."

Under the 5-year contract, Orange Business Services' key objective is to create a comprehensive global approach for JTI's end users by creating a unified workspace that includes a seamless set of tools to enable collaboration between team members, partners and customers. This contract includes a transformation program during which Orange will deploy one site every week during a two-year period, starting with the European and Russian markets.