Better Communication & Collaboration with Lync:

The Barnardos’ Story

Anne Collins

Information Support Services ManagerBarnardos New Zealand

Better Communication and

Collaboration with Lync 2010The Barnardos’ Story…

Barnardos NZ

• SME Charity working in the areas of Early Childhood

Education and Social services in New Zealand

• “Children Come First” – we provide education and

assistance to families and children in order to

develop children’s potentials

• 80 offices throughout NZ

• 900 employees

The Drivers

• Old second hand phone systems failing

• Organisation dispersed (80 offices), no phone

integration, difficult to communicate => limited sense

of “belonging”

• Staff technically challenged / resistant (social

workers, older teachers)

• Network connections can have dubious quality

outside main centres & expensive for QoS

• Microsoft Lync running

unified communications

across the data network,

with 3 main PSTN gateways

out to the telephone

network (for BCP)

• Pilot completed in OCS and

now half way through

upgrading offices to Lync

for full rollout.

Solution Selected

Results

• Intuitive phone system integrated with mobiles and

Outlook, positive uptake

• Staff are using shared desktops for planning sessions,

budget reviews , remote training

• Peer to peer video conferencing allows

managers to hold VOIP / visual meetings with

remote staff e.g. Fundraising, HR

• Running across ADSL broadband links which

connect 80% of our offices, no QoS

• Mobile integration allows more efficiencies

• Even the smallest office is connected

Success Factors

• Got technical Project Manager that knew what

“VOIP” meant

• Used most negative person in Senior Management

Team on project panel

• Sold as an extension to email

• Rolled out pilot to the biggest offices first (pilot)

=> immediate savings

=> won over the senior managers

• Training customised for user level of understanding

But project currently slowed because of shortage of

Lync skills with vendors