It was around six years ago when the Sandvik Group – a Swedish mining and construction giant with more than 40,000 employees worldwide – decided to upgrade its unified communications system to Unify OpenScape.
The system is deployed in Sandvik’s private cloud data centre near Stockholm in Sweden and because it’s has virtually no limit to the number of users it can support, many of the company’s sites around the world are now connected.
The sites already supported include: the United States; South Africa; the Netherlands; Spain; Mexico; Canada; Germany, New Zealand and Australia – with plans for Chile and India to join soon.
When expansion goes this far afield, there can sometimes be difficulty deploying the new technology seamlessly. Plus, when Sandvik Mining and Sandvik Construction (both part of the Sandvik Group), here in Australia changed over to OpenScape, it was obvious from the start it wouldn’t be possible to use the company’s Swedish staff for technical assistance because of the major time difference here.
On-Line Communications has the knowledge for Unify products
Because of this major time difference, Sandvik opted to use the Sydney-based telecommunications company, On-Line Communications, for local technical support with the Unify product here in Australia. (For more information on On-Line Communications visit here)
As David Parkes, Sandvik’s Standard Services Manager for Oceania, said: “One of the reasons I went with On-Line Communications was because they definitely knew the product from the get-go and this allowed the implementation here to run a lot smoother than it would have been if we’d used other companies.”
“I think I was the first person outside of Sweden to get localised support and then get everything working when the system was new,” added Mr Parkes. “We definitely took the opportunity and ran with it and it’s worked out well.”
Mr Parkes said with On-Line Communication’s help, the Unify system has “… definitely consolidated the amount of phone system support the company needs overall. We’ve been able to reduce resources and centralise technology.”
Adapting to the European standard
Mr Parkes added: “I think at first, even the global organisation struggled a little bit because the technology from Unify was so new. It’s been a bit of a learning curve on everyone’s parts because we’ve adopted the European standard and this is a bit different to what would be considered normal here in Australia.”
“But On-Line has adapted to this standard and they’ve come to know the Swedes and how they operate. I think the Swedes have the same level of understanding, so they appreciate what everyone’s bringing to the service,” he added.
Mr Parkes said the company uses the Global Contact Centre a great deal and this is “… one of the very stable products from the Unify system. Whenever we make changes or implement new Contact Centers, they are running smoothly very quickly.
Sandvik Mining and Sandvik Construction use the Unify OpenScape Voice system in over 15 of their 50 local sites.
On-Line Communications is a Sydney-based telecommunications company, specialising in Unify communications systems . For more information go to www.olcs.com.au or for a free chat about telecommunications systems, email us at info@olcs.com.au
Sandvik Group: Sandvik is a high-tech and global engineering group offering advanced products and services which enhance customer productivity, profitability and safety. The company holds world-leading positions in selected areas – tools and tooling systems for metal cutting; equipment and tools, service and technical solutions for the mining and construction industries; products in advanced stainless steels, special alloys, titanium, and metallic and ceramic resistance materials. In 2015, the Group had about 45,000 employees and sales of about 86 billion SEK in more than 150 countries.
Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology is a business area within the Sandvik Group and a global leading supplier of equipment and tools, service and technical solutions for the mining and construction industries. Application areas include rock drilling, rock cutting, crushing and screening, loading and hauling, tunneling, quarrying and breaking and demolition. In 2015, sales were approximately 33 billion SEK with about 15,000 employees incontinuing operations.
Throughout Australia, New Zealand and Freeport, Sandvik Mining and Construction employ over 1000 employees, in over 50 locations. For more information, go to www.miningandconstruction.sandvik.com/au