New telecommunications solution for ROSTA AG

The specialists at Bouygues Energies & Services implemented a secure, flexible, simple, and cost-effective communication and collaboration platform for the global Hunzenschwil-based company Rosta AG based on Microsoft 365 and Teams. The company’s employees can thus use different devices in their work and communication, whether they’re in the office or on the go.

Rosta AG is the world’s leading manufacturer of rubber spring and damping systems. In order to meet the demands of its global customers and to be able to react to their requirements in good time, the Hunzenschwil-based company depends on a modern, reliable ICT infrastructure that can be expanded at any time.

After analysing Rosta AG’s requirements for a new telecommunications platform, the specialists from Bouygues Energies & Services in Switzerland established that the collaborative needs and requirements at Rosta could no longer be fully covered by the existing solution. The company expressed the need for a simple and cost-effective collaboration platform. Not only did it need to be implemented quickly, but it also needed to be used efficiently so that the company could once again focus on its core task. The initial situation was as follows:

• The existing telecommunications solution was getting on in years and no longer met today’s modern telephony requirements.
• The maintenance costs generated by the system were too high.
• The infrastructure was complex and, in some cases, could no longer be replaced.
• The back-up mechanisms were limited.
• There was no high-availability system or security.

At that point, the company had already gained initial experience with Microsoft Teams. The consultation with Bouygues Energies & Services revealed that all existing requirements, as well as desired new functions, could be accommodated with the collaboration solution from Microsoft. The actual-state analysis of the existing system and the global review of the Microsoft tenant provided the basis for the expansion of voice integration in Microsoft Teams.

The parallel development of the project enabled flexible porting without the risk of lengthy interruptions to business communication. The solution was extensively tested at Rosta AG in a Proof of Concept (POC) before the actual changeover took place. For this purpose, ‘key’ or ‘power’ users were trained in the new way of working. Only a few configuration steps had to be carried out on the day of the changeover.

Employees have several options for working with the new communication solution. While the “classic” desk phone is still in use, especially in production, employees can now also work and communicate on the go using the software-based element on all possible end devices such as notebooks, smartphones or tablets no matter where they are, and conveniently control call routing via the smartphone application.

The implemented project is based on the latest, most secure technology concepts. The basis for the communication infrastructure was provided with a direct routing concept and a cloud-based session border controller. The connection to the public telephone network is now via a SIP trunk from Peoplefone. This approach not only generated cost savings for the company, but also created the basis for future hybrid working models.

Thanks to the flexible integration of the solution and the gradual migration with the POC, the customer was extremely satisfied with the solution and implementation. The newly implemented platform is many times more flexible and offers more possibilities in terms of collaboration and teamwork. Rosta AG employees appreciate the simplicity of the software and the new functions, which are laid out in the same way for both internal and external communication. The changeover and migration proceeded without incident due to the project plan and schedule, which were drawn up in advance. All main phone numbers and all direct numbers were immediately available again on the day of the changeover without interruption.

Stefan Hartenfels, Project Manager at Rosta AG, was extremely satisfied with the project’s execution and implementation in cooperation with Bouygues Energies & Services, and this project can be considered a great success for all the companies and stakeholders involved.

Platform: Microsoft Office 365

Applications: Microsoft Teams