The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) was established in 1986 by the Australian Federal Parliament as an independent statutory organisation reporting to Parliament through the Attorney-General of Australia. The Commission leads the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia through education and public awareness, addressing abuse of human rights, complaints of discrimination and human rights compliance and policy and legislative development. The Commission needed to unite its devices across its divisions and Plantronics headsets were selected to help with this integration.
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The Commission wanted to unite their collaboration devices across its divisions for complete consistency and to improve quality of the call agent experience. Microsoft Skype for Business was already selected as their core communications application platform and the idea was to integrate all phone and desktop devices with it. The Commission needed the highest quality audio for all call agents through to executive management but at the same time they wanted to ensure they had the right tools to manage devices and detect and remedy issues before they became outwardly apparent. For the Commission’s IT team, the integrated platform had to be easy-to-use and intuitive, providing a unified experience.
THE SOLUTION
The Commission issued an Approach to Market (ATM) invitation to bid for a Skype for Business integrated devices platform. Nallawilli Technology submitted a bid, partnering with Plantronics and Polycom as service and device vendors. “It was an obvious choice,” said Roderick McLeod, CEO of Nallawilli Technology. “Plantronics and Polycom are among the leaders for Skype-integrated communications technology, and devices from both organisations work in great harmony with each other.”
The Commission asked Nallawilli Technology to provide testing units, with the subsequent proof of concept phase being successful. The Commision selected Nallawilli Technology as their preferred technology partner for the implementation project. Within one week of being selected, Nallawilli completed an assessment of the Commission’s environment, determined what technical integration was required, and started processing device orders. The time frame for the implementation was very fast with all solution architecture, ordering, delivery of devices and installation completed within two weeks.
Following this, the Commission completed three weeks of training. The training program consisted of several weeks with experienced unified communications (UC) trainers on location at its offices for the migration and go-live of operations for the entire new Skype-integrated UC solution.
The final UC solution consisted of Plantronics Savi, Blackwire, and Voyager headsets, Calisto speakerphones and the Plantronics Manager Pro software platform to manage all of the Skype-
integrated devices across the Commission. The software service utilises a cloud-based architecture to measure usage dynamics, and safeguard users, ensuring a high quality communications and
collaboration experience. The Acoustic Analysis suite of Plantronics Manager Pro in particular reviews a logged history of acoustic events, such as unexpected loud sounds during agent-
customer conversations. This data can be used to help organisations ensure the occupational safety of their workforce.
Plantronics Manager Pro also provides operational, historical, and contextual data on voice interactions and headset usage patterns. The implementation for AHRC also included Polycom VVX600, VVX500 and VVX300 Skype-integrated video desk phones for the desktops of executives and Polycom Trio Skype-integrated devices for high quality office meeting room collaboration.
“I commend Nallawilli Technology for their strong commitment to closing the digital and social divide between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians,” said Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. “Their work with the Australian Human Rights Commission has been first class.”
THE CONCLUSION
The business challenge was resolved via innovative technology, an efficient and seamless project implementation, along with on-location training from experienced UC consultants. The Commission now enjoys a much higher quality of internal and external interaction with partners and the general public it serves.
ABOUT NALLAWILLI TECHNOLOGY
Nallawilli Technology is a 100 per cent owned, First Nation communications and technology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. The ultimate goal of the business is to see First Nation Australians participate in sustainable economic engagement within the Australian economy, whilst maintaining connections to country and language for the rising generation. Since 2009, the
company has sold products and services to corporate enterprises, and Federal and State government agencies in Australia.