Leading chemical distributor turns to ESI, a Cisco Silver Certified Partner for advanced Cisco communications solution

May 19, 2009

Customer Profile

Founded in 1976, Quadra Chemicals, Ltd., is the fourth-largest distributor of specialty and commodity chemical products in Canada, and the fifteenth-largest in North America. Headquartered in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec, the company has five additional facilities across Canada and one in Shanghai, and employs approximately 180 people.

Situation

Quadra Chemicals, Ltd., has successfully grown from a two-person business to a leading player in the global chemical-distribution industry. However, an outdated communications infrastructure could no longer support the company's needs or goals, and threatened to impact its exemplary customer service.

"Throughout our locations, we had different, antiquated phone and voicemail systems that were no longer supported," explains Ian Zwirek, network and systems manager, Quadra Chemicals, Ltd. "We experienced frequent outages, sound quality was poor, and our offices weren't well integrated. Plus, we were paying significant maintenance expenses to several vendors.

"We deemed the situation 'high risk' in terms of our business-continuity policy. We needed a system that could be centrally managed by our existing IT staff, was flexible and scalable enough to support offices of all sizes and a mobile workforce, and that could seamlessly integrate and operate with our existing infrastructure."

Quadra turned to ESI Information Technologies, Inc., to build an advanced Cisco communications solution on its existing Cisco core network. Quadra had previously worked with the 230-employee Cisco Silver Certified Partner with headquarters and an office in Quebec, with an additional office in Mississauga, Ontario, and trusted their experience, foresight, and expertise.

Solution

ESI began the ongoing phased implementation in October 2006, installing Cisco Unified Communications to enable Quadra employees, business partners, and customers to collaborate with a combination of voice, video, data, and mobility applications.

To satisfy Quadra's voice needs, ESI implemented Cisco Unified Communications Manager, a powerful IP telephony call-processing solution. ESI also installed Cisco Unified Presence that facilitates presence-enabled communications with Cisco Unified Communications and other critical business applications. To this, ESI added Cisco Unity Express voice messaging to help Quadra customers find the right person or department the first time.

ESI brought the power of this advanced solution to users' desktops with Cisco 7900 Series Unified IP Phones that give Quadra employees easy access to robust voice and data communications.

Results

"Our unified communications solution has greatly improved internal communications and enables us to provide better customer service," says Zwirek. "The new voice and voicemail solutions are fully reliable and we're protected against hardware and software becoming unsupported.

"Looking ahead, we'll build on our platform to implement features and functionality that will help us operate at new levels of efficiency and productivity. Tools like four-digit dialing, presence, and number mobility will enhance our one-team approach and benefit our highly mobile management team.

"The implementation has absolutely met our vision and goals for the solution. We were able to start small to become comfortable with the technology, and then roll out the solution to the rest of our sites with no negative impact on IT services or employee productivity. And we continue to manage and maintain the system with equal ease.

"ESI is a great fit for us. They understand our business and are big enough to support all our needs, yet still deliver the personalized service of a smaller firm. In them, we have a highly responsive, cost-effective partner that is truly committed to our success. We'll continue working with them and Cisco as our business grows and evolves."