Success Story

Commercial lender adopts unified communications

OSEO

Paris, France

1,800 employees located at over 40 sites

Challenge

• Addressend-of-lifeofexisting

telephonesystems

• Reducesupportcosts

• Enhanceworkerproductivity

Solution

• ReplacedconventionalPBX

telephonesystemswithCisco

UnifiedCommunicationsVoIP

• IntegratedUnifiedCommunications

systemwithIBMLotusNotes

• Trainedkeyusers

Results

• Gavetheinnovation-focusedOSEO

organizationawaytoleadbyexample

• Providedgreatlyenhanced

communicationsfunctionality

• Simplifiedandcentralizedtheinfra-

structurewhileenhancing scalability

• AchievedsignificantROIand

cost reduction

Challenge

Paris, France-based OSEO is a public financial institution formed

to support the innovation and growth of small and medium-sized

businesses through the distribution of government financing. It

focuses in particular on innovation, with the aim of developing the

French economy.

OSEO is a geographically diverse organization with 40 regional

branches across France in addition to its Paris headquarters.

Each site had its own conventional private branch exchange

(PBX) telephone system, with a larger master system located at

headquarters. This outdated, 15-year-old infrastructure was

reaching end-of-life and its limitations were seriously hampering

the productivity of the business.

Cost and complexity were major issues. Each system was supported

separately at great expense, through local contractors. In addition,

the nature of the existing telephone infrastructure was actually

leading to lost customer calls as the system’s voice mail was so

complicated that few people used it. Workers were tied to their desks

because they could not forward their extension to other phones.

Even common functions like conference calling were not available.

2

“ Now, we are displaying the kind of sophistication

and advanced thinking we hope to encourage

in our clients.”

OSEO wanted to improve the productivity of its employees by

providing highly functional, consistent communications across the

whole organization. Integration with email and instant messaging

were key design criteria to give workers greater flexibility in how they

interact with one another and with customers. By removing the bar-

riers between voice and electronic channels and providing functions

that cross over from the voice realm to the digital desktop, OSEO

professionals would find it far easier to stay in touch at all times.

Solution

OSEO elected to replace its entire telephony infrastructure

with a Voice Over IP (VoIP) solution based on Cisco® Unified

Communications, implemented and integrated by IBM. Rather than

separate PBXes at each site, the entire system, with the exception

of the IP telephones and network infrastructure at the branches, is

housed on two Cisco servers – based on IBM System x® technology –

at the Paris headquarters.

The selection of IBM® and Cisco® was based on several factors,

according to Xavier de Broca, CIO of OSEO. “We sensed a strong

team. We understood that Cisco and IBM project managers had

already worked together and felt confident in one another even at the

highest skill level. Also, Cisco had a simple architecture that was well

suited to our needs and on which we will be able to build the rest of

our architecture for years to come.”

A key point was the integration of the new VoIP system with OSEO’s

existing Lotus Notes® solution. Now, users have a single integrated

communications toolset that combines telephony with email and

instant messaging, using the Notes interface that they already know.

It is no longer necessary to switch between applications to commu-

nicate in different ways, which simplifies the task load for workers.“ We must ensure that branches, the head

office, the salespeople, the experts, the front

office and the back office can quickly exchange

information to help those customers.”

3

The integration of telephony with the desktop opens up a wide range

of new capabilities. For example, when a new voice mail arrives, the

employee receives an alert in Notes. Each person has full access to

his or her messages and contacts, from any desktop, so they need

not stay in their office. It also includes useful capabilities such as

click-to-call, where a phone number in any email or document can

be dialed simply by clicking on it.

IBM, working with local provider OBS, performed the deployment of

the entire system and also did the necessary Lotus upgrades and

integration, all without disrupting regular operations at OSEO. “The

deepest familiarity with Notes was another important factor in our

selection of IBM and Cisco for this project,” says Mr. de Broca. “It

went very fast. We really didn’t lose any time, which was an indica-

tor of our success from the users’ point of view. They barely noticed

anything being done – one day there was a working system. It was,

ultimately, very easy to accomplish.”

A final critical part of the engagement was change management.

Thanks to the leveraging of Lotus Notes, most users needed only to

become familiar with a simple new toolbar added to their desktop.

IBM did more extensive training of all administrative assistants and

support personnel at OSEO headquarters, along with key employees

at each branch office.

Results

Simplification and cost reduction

Thanks to the elimination of dozens of separate and costly support

contracts, OSEO has realized a very strong return on investment. The

physical infrastructure is also far simpler and more reliable, reducing

the need for ongoing maintenance. The only equipment required at

the branch offices are basic networking hardware such as switches

and routers, and the telephones themselves; all key components are

housed at OSEO’s headquarters.

Productivity

OSEO employees are now far more effective thanks to the conver-

gence of communications methods and the system’s ease of use.

The organization worked with IBM to create a dashboard that

monitors such metrics as call handling efficiency, which has shown

a marked increase. In addition, a survey conducted months after

the system went online shows that users are far more satisfied with

their new tools.

More important is that OSEO is able to better serve its clients.

“Responsiveness to our customers is absolutely essential,” says

Mr. de Broca. “We must ensure that branches, the head office, the

salespeople, the experts, the front office and the back office can

quickly exchange information to help those customers. Now that

we can choose the right communication tool for any given situation,

we are able to do that much better than we could before.”

Organizational efficiency

OSEO management was won over by the organizational potential

of the new system, according to Xavier de Broca. “Having a single

telephone infrastructure for all of OSEO allowed us to combine

call centers and branches. That gives us much more effective and

responsive call handling, which is very important when dealing with

our entrepreneurial customers. They can be sensitive to inefficiency.”

Scalability

Unlike conventional hard-wired PBX systems, a VoIP system is inher-

ently scalable since it is a computer network. Mr. de Broca explains

that “The fact that this system can be very quickly and transparently

scaled is important to our future. The next steps for us are to add

video capability and support for mobile phones. We will not have to

overhaul the system to do those things.”

CiscoSystems,Inc.

170 West Tasman Drive

San Jose, CA 95134-1706

www.cisco.com/go/ibm

InternationalBusinessMachinesCorporation

New Orchard Road

Armonk, New York 10504

www.ibm.com/cisco

© 2012 Cisco Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and

certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or Website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship

between Cisco and any other company.

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Global Business Services, Lotus Notes and System x are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other

countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common

law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is

available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

CSC03015-USEN-00

Because adding extensions or even whole new branch offices

involves nothing more than adding new network nodes and con-

figuring additional addresses, the system can support almost any

future growth scenario. While increased capacity was not one of the

organization’s primary requirements for the system, it will be able

to grow very simply and at very low cost, without major changes to

the infrastructure.

Leadership

The Cisco Unified Communications solution gives OSEO much

greater business flexibility and productivity through its advanced

functions. The system represents an intangible benefit of great

importance to the organization. The adoption of advanced

technology positions OSEO as a thought leader and demonstrates

to its clients that it shares their vision.

“It is our mission to foster innovation,” states Xavier de Broca. “So

it is in our best interest to display innovation ourselves. We should

be leading by example in every way possible. Needless to say, a

15-year-old, overly complicated telephone system that hampered

our effectiveness was not sending the right message. Now, we are

displaying the kind of sophistication and advanced thinking we hope

to encourage in our clients.”

Formoreinformation

To find out more about Cisco Unified Communications go to:

www.cisco.com/go/unifiedcommunications

To find out more about the Cisco and IBM alliance go to:

www.ibm.com/cisco.

Productlist

• Unified Communications

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager

• Cisco Unified IP Phones

• Cisco Unity® Unified Messaging

• Cisco LAN PoE

• IBM

• IBM Lotus Notes

• IBM Global Business Services®

• IBM Global Technology Services