BACKGROUND

Since its founding in 1916, the Del Monte brand has been one of Americas most well-known brands for canned vegetables and fruits. The company nearly tripled in size in 2002 with the acquisition of several units of H.J. Heinz Co.; and it generated more than $3.4 billion in net sales in fiscal 2007. With a powerful portfolio of brands including Del Monte, StarKist, S&W, Contadina, Meow Mix, Kibbles ‘n Bits, 9Lives, Milk-Bone and Snausages, Del Monte Foods products are found in nine out of 10 U.S. households.

CHALLENGE

While the original Del Monte Foods in San Francisco had a CallXpress system, the new units from Heinz had an existing Octel system. Del Monte Foods cooked up a plan to standardize on one system. The evaluation team included Dennis Tokarski, manager of telecommunications, and Dave Braun, senior network analyst. According to Tokarski, Octel support was going end-of-life and Del Monte was going towards voice over IP, so the natural step was to plan a new voice mail system.

According to Braun, the fact that CallXpress had a TUI that was extremely similar to the Octel Aria 250 made it the frontrunner. Also, we liked the fact that CallXpress could network with the existing Octel system. For a user migrating from an Octel system to CallXpress, the Octel Aria TUI allows them to access their CallXpress mailbox using the same familiar commands.

THE SOLUTION

After evaluating a variety of other systems, Del Monte Foods decided CallXpress had the right recipe for success. The company now networks five CallXpress systems to support 28 facilities, supporting nearly 3,000 users on one enterprise VoIP platform. They are steadily converting more users to VoIP.

CallXpress was the best solution for three reasons, said Braun. First, compared to all the other enterprise platform solutions we considered, CallXpress offers a very attractive maintenance offering. Second, we liked the fact that the CallXpress could seamlessly network with our existing Octel systems until we phased them out completely. Third, it mimics Octels user interface, which is already familiar to our users. As a result, we had to invest in very little in training to switch 3,000 employees over to the new system.

THE RESULTS

Del Monte Foods has standardized on a reliable, cost-effective platform, and is reaping financial savings on maintenance contracts as well. According to Tokarski, We saved about $150,000 per year on maintenance by replacing two Octel systems with CallXpress.

In order to match the right features to the users needs, Del Monte Foods has implemented features on a user-by-user basis. According to Braun, executives particularly enjoy the ability to receive and listen to voice mail messages via their e-mail inboxes or listen to e-mails over the phone. Many of them carry BlackBerry or Treo smartphones to receive their e-mail messages, he added. They can also look in their Exchange inbox to see who called, and listen to the voice message attachment. It helps them to manage their time better.

Del Monte Foods also relies on the automated attendant feature of CallXpress to communicate changing schedules to its plant employees. Workers call in and are guided through prompts such as day shift or night shift, in English or Spanish. The system tells them what time to come in, whether overtime is needed and the status of production.

So far, Del Monte Foods has approximately 28 sites converted to VoIP, and approximately 12 to 14 more that they are converting over the next two years including international facilities. Tokarski predicts that the user base on the CallXpress system will grow to a total of 4,000 users next year. We made two acquisitions last year, and we plan to eliminate their phone systems and bring them into the CallXpress system.

Del Monte Foods was introduced to AVSTs CallXpress unified communications solution by Black Box Network Services, a trusted partner and a leading AVST authorized reseller. They understood the complex infrastructure of Del Monte Foods and recommended CallXpress to integrate seamlessly into their environment. They continue to provide first class technical support to Del Monte Foods. Black Box Network Services and AVST have been great companies to work with and we look forward to a great future with CallXpress, says Tokarski.

A best-of-breed unified communications solution, CallXpress delivers world-class call processing, voice mail, unified messaging, fax, notification and advanced speech-enabled personal assistant. It increases employee productivity, effectiveness and collaboration at a minimal investment. With all messages arriving in a single inbox, CallXpress greatly improves message management time. Its extensive voice mail functionality ensures that all employees receive their messages efficiently and have the ability to answer queries promptly.