Leading Global Supplier of Bulk Material Handling Systems Scales Up With Zultys

The Challenge

With more than 65 years of experience under its belt, the Illinois-based company knows that timely, quality communications are key to efficient operations and customer satisfaction. However, with hundreds of employees at offices scattered across 11 countries, and facilities ranging from headquarters offices to manufacturing centers, Martin Engineering faced a growing cost and quality-of-service challenge with its ShoreTel phone system.
“We’re a company that has embraced advanced technology — including 3D design and systems modeling — to improve our products and processes,” said Wayne Roesner, Information Technology Manager, Martin Engineering. “So we’re very aware of the benefits we could achieve through VoIP and Unified Communications. We just weren’t seeing that materialize with the ShoreTel phone system we had implemented.”

Not only did Martin Engineering experience significant support costs for its ShoreTel system, it was also finding it difficult to scale its system to meet operational needs.

“The ShoreTel system had a significantly higher total cost of ownership and maintenance than we’d expected, and it was also very difficult to scale cost-effectively across our business units and operations,” Roesner said. “We knew we needed to find another solution that could better meet our business needs.”

The Solution

Midland Communications, a leading Zultys partner with more than 30 years of telecommunications experience, fully audited Martin Engineering’s business communications needs to craft a Zultys solution that resulted in an immediate return on investment. The Zultys solution allowed Martin Engineering to migrate all of its phone services to SIP trunking to realize immediate cost savings, and cut its support and maintenance costs by 50 percent. The solution met current business needs, fully supported remote and mobile workers worldwide, and laid a clear path for seamless expansion of the system.

“We quickly realized that the Zultys solution was an ideal fit for Martin Engineering’s needs, given its multi-site and remote worker requirements and desire to cut costs while expanding communications tools for the company,” said Jason Smith, VP of Midland Communications, a Zultys reseller. “Zultys’ native SIP solution is efficient, powerful and flexible. Furthermore, Zultys has a true partner-centric world view. We know we can count on Zultys’ support, and the fact that they view our success as being equal to their own is refreshing.”

Midland Communications implemented a Zultys solution that completely replaced Martin Engineering’s inefficient ShoreTel system. The initial phase of the Zultys solution covered 500 employees through the implementation of a redundant cluster of MX-250 IP PBXs installed at their Neoponset, Illinois headquarters campus, with MX30 IP PBXs located at facilities in Peoria, Illinois; Denver; Aspen, Colorado; Ozarks, Missouri; and a site in Mexico. The company also installed Zultys IP phones at each site.

The Zultys MX250 and MX30 all-in-one solutions combine a wide range of Unified Communications features — including voice, high-definition video calling, presence, IM/chat, powerful call handling and UC mobility — into a single 2U rack-mountable or shelf-top appliance. The company secured licenses for MXIE™ (the Zultys Unified Communications Client), UC mobility, Fax, Call Record and other features. The Zultys IP PBXs were grouped together into an MXgroup configuration, providing completely seamless company-wide Unified Communications, including extension dialing, presence and chat services.

The Benefit

“The Zultys solution paid for itself on day one,” said Wayne Roesner, Information Technology Manager, Martin Engineering. “Our transition to the solution was near-seamless, including a full migration to SIP trunking that immediately paid for the entire cost of the system installation by eliminating expensive PSTN services. Also, because of the simplified system architecture Zultys’ ‘all in one’ solution provides, we were also able to cut our maintenance and support costs in half. We are also realizing significant productivity gains and improvements in customer service through great tools like presence, chat and mobility.”

Martin Engineering has also been able to weave its global workforce into a single team through Zultys’ fully integrated Unified Communications solution.

“Now all of our staff have the same access and connectivity to the corporate communications system, no matter where they are located,” Roesner said. “Zultys does a great job with seamless, painless remote worker support, and their UC mobility applications for BlackBerry and the iPhone mean even our mobile workers are fully integrated and accessible. An employee can be on their mobile phone at a customer site and collaborate with colleagues around the world to troubleshoot in real-time.”

“Happy customers, more opportunities and great support? I couldn’t ask for more from a Unified Communications solution provider like Zultys,” added Midland’s Smith.

Case Study MARTIN ENGINEERING

Zultys Delivers Value and Wins Deal

Zultys Delivers Value & Wins Deals

By Matt Brunk, Telecomworx | Apr 11, 2011 | No comments yet … (No Jitter Blog)

A few weeks ago, prior to Zultys releasing their MX 6.0 Unified Communications software I had the opportunity to talk with Neil Lichtman, CEO; Steve Francis, CMO; and John Cunningham, Director of Marketing over at Zultys.Neil and Steve laid out an overview of Zultys. They use a distribution model with established market areas for their channel partners without saturating a territory. They are targeting 10-200 station single user sites and companies with 128 sites and 10,000 stations. There are two appliances: MX30 and the MX250. The MX30 serves 10 trunks x 30 stations and uses a flash drive. The MX250 is 2U rack mounted and serves 60 trunks x 250 stations. Their mobile client works on iPhone and Blackberry, and Android is currently under development. The MX30 consumes just 11 WATTS or 96.36 KWH annually and the MX250 uses just 84 WATTS or 735.84 KWH annually. In 2010, their sales doubled and they added over 100 channel partners including partners in Australia, Brazil and Europe.

Steve revealed that Zultys added a tool to discover phones, to minimize time that partners spend on installation of SIP phones. This got my attention because John and I previously discussed how important this is for dealers. Zultys’s customers requested Active Directory/LDAP authentication and Zultys delivered this in MX 6.0 . Notably, Zultys partners closed two substantial deals recently, one for $1.5 million with a 38-site auto dealer franchise and another deal at $2 million with 18 sites and about 3,000 stations.

A key differentiator that Zultys holds over many solutions is their software development efforts for Unifying the Usersof Microsoft, Apple and Unix OS. What MX 6.0 really shows is a sharp distinction in that Zultys is open standards, not open source, and that they are committed to delivering that old time mojo in a box from the factory–only their mojo is modern and in step with what folks are buying and using.

MX 6.0 Highlights
MXvideo provides integrated point-to-point HD video for Zultys’s MXIE desktop Unified Communications client. Now, users may conduct secure, reliable, “face to face” meetings in real-time. MXvideo key features and benefits include:

* High-definition, point-to-point desktop video support in a secure, fully integrated user experience

* Easy to deploy and use; launched and controlled within MXIE, users may move seamlessly from instant message to voice, and add video with a single click

* Immediate ROI by reducing travel expenses and facilitating more productive meetings

* No additional servers or software required other than MX Release 6.0

MXmobile feature enhancements include:

* Call transfer, manually or via local BlackBerry address book or corporate MX directory

* Call park for another user that can be retrieved via MXIE or any other phone on the system

* Call hold, complete with music on hold and retrievable via any phone on the system

* Call action screen that shows a list of active calls and access to call control functions * No requirement for additional servers; only a light device application

The Zultys Salesforce.com Communicator integrates the Zultys IP Phone System and the Salesforce.com CRM application suite for full call control from within the contact record, and includes capturing call notes, providing inbound contact record screen pop, executing holds and transfers, and click-to-call capabilities.

Likewise, the Zultys Outlook Communicator provides close integration between the Zultys IP Phone System and Microsoft Outlook. Users have full call control from within Outlook, and can execute calls directly from Outlook. Furthermore, this product synchronizes presence with the Outlook calendar, and users may change their presence directly from Outlook. This brings tighter integration between the Zultys UC platform and the Microsoft messaging platform.

Zultys Message Escalation is a voice mail and fax escalation feature improving customer service and business operations for companies providing time-critical customer services and customer care by ensuring a 100 percent receipt of company voice mails and faxes through a customizable chain of e-mail and voice call alerts that continue until action is taken on the voice mail or fax.

MXreport contact center reporting tool is improved so contact center managers and supervisors can easily compose custom statistical reports for multiple agents and contact center groups. This provides deep insight into call handling, agent performance and service levels. Zultys enables contact center managers with simple and cost-effective tools, without requiring additional hardware or third-party applications.

Zultys in the News

Zultys Receives Unified Communications® Magazine’s 2010 Product of the Year Award

 

MX250 IP PBX Recognized for Exceptional Innovation  

 

SUNNYVALE, CA –(Marketwire – April 12, 2011) -  Zultys, a premier provider of innovative unified communications solutions that empower businesses to collaborate effectively, announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named its advanced MX250 IP phone system a recipient of its 2010 Unified Communications magazine Product of the Year Award.

Zultys’ pure open standards-based SIP Unified Communications solutions seamlessly integrate voice, data, video, presence and mobility into a single corporate unified communications system. Zultys Unified Communications solutions help businesses reduce costs, boost productivity, and provide the lowest total cost of ownership and fastest ROI of any system available.

Based on Linux and open SIP standards, the MX250 IP PBX is a feature-rich, enterprise-class business IP telephone system that supports high-quality voice and unified communications services for up to 250 users on a single appliance. The system is ideal for all businesses and organizations and can be seamlessly expanded to support up to 10,000 users in 128 offices across an enterprise-wide unified communications system.

“We are excited to receive Unified Communications Magazine’s 2010 Product of the Year Award for our advanced MX250 IP PBX phone system,” said Neil Lichtman, chairman and CEO of Zultys. “At Zultys, our top priority is providing solutions that are easy to deploy, maintain and use, and we are thrilled that this recognition reflects our ability to give our customers what they need. We are also thankful for our channel partners who are dedicated to delivering our innovative IP phone systems and unified communications solutions to the marketplace with the highest level of customer satisfaction.

“Zultys has proven they are committed to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace. Unified Communications is pleased to grant a 2010 Product of the Year Award for the MX250 IP PBX phone system,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “We’re proud to honor their hard work and accomplishments and look forward to more innovative solutions from Zultys in the future.”

Product of the Year Award winners are published in the April 2011 issue of Unified Communications magazine. For more information about TMC, please visit www.tmcnet.com.
l to medium enterprises, Zultys delivers a powerful, feature-rich communication system that is easy to use. For our channel partners, Zultys ensures customer satisfaction by delivering a fully supported solution that is easy to deploy and maintain.