Festo AG & Co. KG

The ini­tial sit­u­a­tion

Festo AG & Co. KG is the world’s lead­ing provider of automa­tion tech­nol­ogy and has become the world mar­ket leader in tech­ni­cal train­ing with a unique range of prod­ucts. In the process of dig­i­ti­za­tion, the 1925 founded family-​owned com­pany with its prod­ucts and ser­vices focuses on the smart pro­duc­tion of the future. Due to the company’s inter­na­tional ori­en­ta­tion, coop­er­a­tion and acces­si­bil­ity are key issues at Festo. In 2012, the com­pany decided to use Lync or Skype for Busi­ness as a global com­mu­ni­ca­tions plat­form. In addi­tion, a com­pat­i­ble Con­tact Cen­ter was to be set up.

The chal­lenge

• The objec­tive was to improve and stan­dard­ize the com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­ture. Sys­tems such as glob­ally dis­trib­uted tele­phone sys­tems, video con­fer­enc­ing tech­nolo­gies and web con­fer­enc­ing tools were to be stan­dard­ized. In addi­tion, a com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem was to be pro­vided that would work reli­ably even under heavy load.
• The new sys­tem should be able to dis­play com­plex sta­tis­tics and reports on a SAP BI basis.
• The sched­uled project time for the roll-​out of 650 agents in 28 coun­tries was only 18 months.

The solu­tion

• After the deci­sion to use Skype for Busi­ness as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­form, a new and inno­v­a­tive Con­tact Cen­ter tech­nol­ogy was eval­u­ated. This should be applic­a­ble on the Skype for Busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­form and should allow the use of SAP CRM.
• In Decem­ber 2015, it was decided to imple­ment a Vox­tron Con­tact Cen­ter based on Skype for Busi­ness with the help of IP Dynam­ics. The deci­sive fac­tor was that IP Dynam­ics was able to demon­strate the inte­gra­tion of the Con­tact Cen­ter with Skype for Busi­ness and SAP CRM in a pilot phase.

The result

• Festo already has 12,000 Skype for Busi­ness users and 9 Enter­prise Voice Servers in oper­a­tion at a total of 100 loca­tions in 50 coun­tries. With Skype for Busi­ness, the com­pany has a highly stan­dard­ized and sta­ble envi­ron­ment in which com­mu­ni­ca­tion appli­ca­tions around the world can be rolled out quickly and oper­ated extremely effi­ciently.
• The objec­tive of hav­ing com­pleted the roll-​out in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2017 was achieved. All of the company’s world­wide loca­tions are in oper­a­tion.
• “The cost/​benefit fac­tor in the project rep­re­sents a high value for Festo. The Vox­tron appli­ca­tion in con­nec­tion with Skype for Busi­ness rep­re­sents a mile­stone for Festo. For the com­pany, this mile­stone means sav­ings with a simul­ta­ne­ous increase in pos­si­bil­i­ties in the Con­tact Cen­ter envi­ron­ment,” says Armin Schlichthärle of Festo AG & Co. KG.

If you are also inter­ested in mod­ern­iz­ing your IT or a Skype for Busi­ness plat­form with SAP CRM and con­tact cen­ter inte­gra­tion, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.