Saving Cost the Star Way

Better collaboration and communication amongst the employees determines the

success of an organization. And if the organization happens to be a leading

broadcasting house, it becomes imperative that the communication and

collaboration becomes key for operational efficiency. Star India, which is a

leading broadcaster in India implemented Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS)

to integrate various modes of communication like voice, data and video for

high-end communication experience, and also to bring collaboration amongst the

users. Here's what they did.

Scenario



STAR has two entities, one in Hong Kong and the other in India. The Indian

entity, Star India has offices in all 4 metros, and in Mumbai it operates from

two offices. Because of the disperse geographic location of the offices in India

and Hong Kong, enabling efficient collaboration and means of communication was a

challenge. Each of the offices had different infrastructure for data as well as

voice. The primary objective was to communicate in a cost effective manner.

OCS as Solution



For meeting the challenge, a Unified Communication solution was required,

and Star India chose Microsoft's Office Communication Server. Driven by the fact

that Star India was already using Microsoft platform to communicate. As their

mailing server was MS Exchange, so there was obvious synergy seen in using OCS

and Exchange hand-in-hand. Evaluation of any other solution for Unified

Communication wasn't therefore made.

The offices in India and Hong Kong were connected with OCS. The OCS was

installed on a blade server placed in Mumbai office. It was configured with two

connection pools, one for Hong Kong and other for India. All Indian users were

connected with the Indian pool.

As an initial step, Star India has setup OCS to be used internally with the

features of IM, Audio/Video, LiveMeeting, etc. Given the bandwidth consumption,

the video feature is used sparingly and is allowed up to a certain level only.

Also there has been encouraging acceptance from the Star India employees

regarding the OCS deployment.

Benefits from OCS



OCS is not just being used for chatting and making calls instead of making long
distance calls, but is also being used for arranging conferences and conducting

interviews. Star India has set up conference rooms where employees can hold a

meeting despite being in different offices. The Live Meeting feature has become

beneficial during deployment of projects, as through this, the employees can

share documents as well as can communicate. It has also become a medium of

imparting training to new employees. The OCS has become a part and parcel of the

work atmosphere in Star India.

This way, when employees are able to interact and collaborate effectively

through OCS, Star has managed to bring down the costs of traveling and also of

the telephone expenses on long distance calls. In next phase, Star India plans

to make it available over Internet so that users who are away from offices can

also use the facilities of OCS. And by providing Blackberry devices to their

employees, Star India can make sure they remain always connected through OCS.