May 31, 2007

Y's America opened in New York City in 1988 to showcase and sell the work of Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto. By 2005, Y's America found itself operating out of three separate administrative locations plus its retail store. As the company prepared to remodel the store and consolidate its administrative operation into a single corporate New York City headquarters, it looked for a company that could help it get a new communications system in place.

Y's America knew its existing, outdated phone system was no longer serving the business well. But with just 14 employees, and all of them focused on success in the highly competitive fashion industry, no one had the time or the expertise to research and choose a new phone system to best serve the dynamic company.

"Our old phone system was outdated and not keeping up with our needs," says Minori Shironishi, operations manager of Y's America. "It could not unify our separate locations or company functions. And phone companies were calling and interrupting us constantly to get our business."

Through a referral, Shironishi found Cisco® Select Partner Octopus Networking, Inc. Octopus is focused solely on the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

"We feel that small businesses can achieve real competitive advantage in their markets by outsourcing their technology infrastructure," says Benjamin Irvine, CEO of Octopus. "Not only does it allow them to focus solely on their core business, but they achieve higher levels of operational efficiency, and their people have access to the best tools on the market, which their competition may not have." In order to help its SMB clients leverage technology for business success, Octopus fills the role of an IT department. In addition to recommending technology, it also provides help desk service and advises clients about technology investment. Recently it has shifted to a model that allows it to provide more hosted services.

Irvine knew that it was the right time for Y's America to consider a new phone system.

"When businesses move, they are forced to decide between maintaining their existing system or investing in something new - one way or another they have to make a spending decision," he says. In the case of Y's America, the administration offices, which were previously located in the retail location, were moving to a new headquarters facility, but still needed to connect transparently with the retail store.

In studying Y's America needs, Irvine recommended that they choose a hosted IP telephony solution. This would deliver the power and flexibility of IP telephony, but with a very low upfront cost.

"Y's America had to contract out to support the old private branch exchange (PBX) system, and they really wanted to get away from that model," says Irvine. "Also, the equipment for a hosted solution is very minimal, so they would have more office space freed up from which to run their business rather than storing a lot of communications gear."

Octopus deployed a Cisco Catalyst® 3750 PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch at Y's America's new headquarters. The actual Cisco Unified Communications system would be hosted via M5 Networks, one of the country's leading outsourced IP phone system providers. It would provide powerful Cisco Unified Communications with low upfront costs, and would transparently connect the new office with the existing retail store. Instead of having a call center located at Y's America offices, the call center exists in the M5 Networks data center. Octopus installed a point-to-point T1 line with backup DSL for failover and redundancy. M5 Networks handled the Internet connections, and programmed the auto attendants.

The overall solution has resulted in fewer cables, and an overall aesthetic that is very simple and clean.

"Things like aesthetics are very important to a company in the fashion business," says Irvine. "Every aspect of the business shapes the perception of the brand, so the look of the Cisco Unified IP Phone 7960G, the hold music, and the nice, uncluttered look of the offices were all very important to the success of the project."

The new solution allows Y's America employees to enjoy features such as the ability to access their voicemails via email, over the Web, or via soft phones loaded onto their PCs. This allows the employees instant access to important messages whether they are in the office or on the move. They can also take advantage of find-me, follow-me technology that can redirect important calls on the fly to an employee's cell phone or any other phone number.

The hosted Cisco Unified Communications solution has also provided the benefit of allowing employees the flexibility to work from home.

"Our new phone system enables us to retain the best people regardless of where they need to work," says Shironishi. "In fact we were able to retain a veteran manager who had a growing family and wanted to work effectively from home some days. With our hosted Cisco solution, we can have employees working from home just as if they were in the office."

With a second Y's America retail store being planned, the staff does not have to worry about the time and expense of choosing and purchasing a new phone system. Deploying Cisco Unified Communications to the new store will be as easy as opening a box.

"A hosted Cisco solution makes growth so easy for small and medium size businesses," says Irvine. "It transforms what was once a large upfront investment into a predictable, incremental cost. That is extremely valuable to small and medium size businesses where technology investments must deliver business results."