DuraVent Gets More Features, Fewer License Fees with Wave

DuraVent

Background

Running a manufacturing business in today’s economy is not for the faint of heart. Along with the trials and tribulations of delivering product to customers on time, manufacturers must pay close attention to tight margins and operational expenses. Any misstep could mean the difference between profit and doom. And relying on expensive, obsolete, communications technology could prove lethal for a company that must remain nimble and efficient in order to survive in this environment.

This was exactly the situation in which DuraVent, a global provider of venting products, found itself. With operations in two locations—its headquarters in Vacaville, California, and a plant near Albany, New York—the company had been relying on an old legacy communications platform to handle its communications needs. Unfortunately, the system’s limited functionality meant that employees had to incur long-distance toll charges to reach colleagues across the country. Features—even voicemail—were non-existent.

“Our system was completely unsuited to handle the needs of our business,” recalled Pat Woods, DuraVent’s IT manager. “We urgently needed to find a feature-rich, and affordable, system.”

Solution

Woods led the effort to identify a new platform that would give DuraVent the features and flexibility it required, but also would be kind to the company’s pocketbook. He recalled a meeting with a large global provider that intrigued him. While the solution had all the bells and whistles DuraVent wanted, the costs associated with deploying it would break the company’s budget.

“We learned very quickly that lots of vendors offered the features that we wanted, but almost all of them required us to buy additional hardware and software licenses in order to access tools like unified communications and collaboration,” explained Woods. “These licensing models could end up costing much more than we envisioned. We were worried that we couldn’t afford a new solution, which would be disastrous.”

Fortunately, Woods’ apprehension turned around when he met Sanford Gladding, vice president of sales and marketing at ATS Communications, Inc., a certified Vertical Communications® partner headquartered in Concord, California. Gladding explained that Vertical’s Wave IP platform houses all voice over IP, telephony, unified communications (UC), collaboration and business applications on one box, so there’s never a need to add more servers. Just as importantly, Vertical’s singular licensing model offered almost all these features for a single license, empowering DuraVent to use all the functionality it needed without having to worry about incremental costs.

Results

With the Vertical Wave IP system, DuraVent has all the communications tools it needs to increase the organization’s productivity and efficiency. The Wave IP platform supports some 180 users across the Vacaville and Albany facilities. Staff no longer need to dial their cross-country colleagues long distance. The Wave IP’s direct-extension dialing makes it easy to reach other team members or transfer calls between facilities.

The Wave IP’s powerful unified communications tools have helped DuraVent improve workflow. With the system’s award-winning ViewPoint UC interface, staff can instantly see the availability of colleagues anywhere on the network through Wave IP’s presence management capabilities. ViewPoint also allows employees to retrieve both email and voice mail messages from a single location.

DuraVent also deployed Vertical’s ViewPoint Mobile application, which extends the full functionality of the enterprise system to iOS and Android devices, ensuring that mobile staff—including DuraVent’s IT team—are always able to make and receive calls, regardless of their location.

“The mobility aspect was a particularly attractive feature,” said Woods. “Our staff is often working on projects around the building or in the field. It’s critical that our managers and staff can reach us quickly if they come across an issue.”

Along with the substantial upgrade in functionality, DuraVent is exceedingly pleased with the total cost of ownership of its Wave IP system. All its key applications— including unified communications and mobility—reside right in the box, so there’s no need for additional hardware or software, and all features are included in Vertical’s singular licensing model.

“The fact that we could acquire all of the features and applications we need without breaking our budget speaks volumes,” said Woods. “Vertical’s technology and licensing model has allowed us to greatly improve the way we conduct business. I couldn’t be more satisfied.”