News Release

Pioneering Virtual Call Centre Delivered to Finland Post Ltd

Call Centre Based on Cisco Technology and Advanced Software from Wicom Communications
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May 19, 2000

HELSINKI, Finland, May 19, 2000 - Cisco Systems and Wicom Communications today announced the delivery of a pioneering fully IP-based call centre to Finland Post Ltd, Finland's leading conveyor of information, small goods and parcels.

All the user interfaces and software in Finnish Post's call centre, based in three locations in Finland, are now browser based. This web hosting offers many benefits to the company as it is a cost-effective method of ensuring that business-critical software is constantly updated and reliable. It also allows greater working flexibility for management and employees.

Mr Seppo Rdsdnen, the area manager for Finland Post counter services, said:"We can set up a new workstation for an employee in less than two minutes. And the new workstation can be located anywhere, as long as there is an IP connection available."

The Finland Post call centre contains no telephones. Instead it has Windows NT workstations equipped with sound cards and headsets. This reflects the fact that the call centre has been built as a service centre and the gateways and servers of the system are hosted by an application service provider (ASP).

Mr Seppo Rdsdnen, from Finland Post, commented on this approach:"We definitely wanted to keep our call centre know-how and our highly skilled agents in-house. Outsourcing the call centre infrastructure was absolutely the best solution for us. Our assets lie in talented and motivated personnel, not in the hardware or software of the call centre itself."

The use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology also offers benefits for Finland Post. Using VoIP, despite the call centre having three different locations, it is technologically centralised and connected via an ATM network. From a technical standpoint, it does not make any difference where an agent is based. Currently, there are 120 call centre agents working in the Finland Post call centre who can log on and work anywhere, even at home, as long as there is an IP-connection to the Finland Post network.

Wicom's call centre application provides comprehensive tools for managing virtual skill groups across multiple locations. The enhanced reporting and real-time management information enables the fast and simple allocation of call centre resources based on the various call loads in different queues.

Mr Seppo Rdsdnen, from Finland Post, added:"Flexibility is tremendously important for us. Our daily call load varies between 5000 and 7000 calls and there are times when the number of calls coming in to the call centre is 120 per cent over capacity and yet a few hours later demand has fallen to only 30 per cent. Using this technology is the first time that we have had full control over the resources, call load and service level of the entire call centre."

Mr Paul di Leo, Director of Enterprise Solutions, EMEA from Cisco Systems, stated:"The Finland Post call centre clearly proves that IP telephony is reliable enough to be deployed in business critical applications. Furthermore it is a great example of the benefits of Cisco's open, standards-based technology, which allows our partners to develop and deliver innovative new solutions to the market."

Mr Ilkka Kivimdki, president of Wicom Communications, said:"Cisco's AVVID VoIP platform has proved to be a good choice for us, not least because of it's open architecture and quality of service (QoS) capabilities. There is a clear demand for flexible, easy-to-use, localised telephony applications. With our software technology we can also offer telephony solutions to the small and medium businesses, where the demand for help desks and call centres is growing rapidly."

IP technology opens totally new delivery channels for corporate telephony systems. Traditional telecommunications companies are being challenged for business by IT resellers and by IT service and outsourcing companies. In Finland, Wicom has several other on-going call centre and PBX projects in the pipeline.

About Wicom Communication

Wicom Communication focuses on IP telephony solutions and value added applications on VoIP platforms. Wicom provides innovative, easy-to-use and versatile IP telephony components and enterprise communication solutions to selected VAR, ASP and OEM partners to serve the global business community.