Case Study: New York Media Taps Consultedge for Customized Communication System
New York Media, the multiple award-winning publisher of New York Magazine and nymag.com, guides the activities, style and opinions of resident New Yorkers, visitors and far-flung readers. In 2007, the company relocated from its long-time office location on New Yorks Madison Avenue to Varick Street in downtown New Yorks rising media corridor, Hudson Square.
It isnt often that you have the opportunity to build the communication system you want, said Albert Lee, director of information technology for New York Media. We were focused on internal mobility. We wanted to be smarter about the way we worked as an organization and deploy the tools we needed to respond to major events outside our control.
Challenge
The relocation of New York Medias corporate headquarters presented an opportunity to upgrade its legacy telephony system, and offered the company an ideal forum to introduce new technologies to support internal mobility, redundancy and future technology upgrades. Technical requirements included integration with the existing Cisco data infrastructure and compatibility with OpenFire, the companys Jabber-based enterprise instant messaging. Extensive new cabling and wiring was required to support the demands of both an IP telephony system and a heavily utilized publishing system network. The company required uninterrupted service throughout the phased relocation of its equipment, systems and employees.
Client Goals
Internal mobility for 300 employees
99.999 percent redundancy
Upgrade of legacy voice mail and telephony infrastructure
Re-engineering of cabling at new corporate office location
Coordination with facility relocation
Flexibility for future extension to remote sites
Flexibility for future upgrades and voice/data integration
Full maintenance of legacy and new systems
Consultedges Solution
Consultedge proposed a solution that addressed each specific need expressed by New York Media. According to Lee, We read proposals from different vendors. Many vendors ignored the business requirements in our RFP and proposed solutions that were inappropriate for our needs. Consultedge focused on how they could achieve our performance goals within our stated infrastructure and budget requirements. We chose Consultedges solution.
Consultedge designed and deployed a cohesive system with the following elements:
Upgrade from legacy Avaya Definity G3 to Communication Manager and S8710 media server, which provides inherent redundancy
Avaya EC500 to support full mobility of all employees within the facility, minimize user training requirements, and support future extension to off-site sales personnel
Avaya Intuity for voice mail, e-mail and fax messaging
Integration of existing Cisco data infrastructure with new system
VPN phones for satellite offices and to provide added flexibility
Cabling to support current operational capacity and accommodate future high-bandwidth voice and data applications
All post-warranty maintenance for new systems and legacy systems
Results
Our overriding goal was a system that allowed for smarter use of peoples time, said Lee. Internal mobility is the cornerstone of that effort. It minimizes the time-consuming voice mail and e-mail pileup by allowing employees to connect to their incoming calls from any phone in the facility. Weve created a system that supports productivity and communication while drastically reducing the time people are inaccessible.
