MADRID, Spain, September 15, 2004 - Cisco Systems announced today that BMW Group España, the Madrid-based Spanish subsidiary of BMW, has chosen a complete Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Communications solution, including a Cisco IP Contact Center, for its new office.
BMW Group España decided to move to a fully IP-based infrastructure to support the company's new centralised location for its 500 employees and external partners, who were previously dispersed across the company's headquarters, and financial and administrative offices.
The new site and its converged infrastructure will help reduce network and phone operating costs for BMW, and help improved customer relations, thanks to a centralised contact centre based on IP technology. The new system is also expected to increase productivity across the organisation. It will do this by improving the system's operation and maintenance - integration in a single PBX platform allows the administration to be centralized in a single IT department. In addition, the new applications that have been implemented will raise the productivity of Call Centre agents, thanks to the integration of all the tools for inbound and outbound calls in one single system.
Cisco's IP Contact Centre solution will be used by 80 agents, who will be able to access customer profiles, information on BMW salesrooms and other vital information over their phones. Further savings will come through the customer care department moving in house - this was previously an outsourced function.
BMW chose Cisco Systems due to the company's experience of providing IP Contact Centres in the locality, combined with its breadth of resource to support the project at other locations around the world if required.
Benito Rodriguez, IT manager said: "With the opening of the new site, we had an open book on telecoms options. With the cost savings attributed to running the contact centre over a converged system, IP simply made the most sense. The end to end solution proposed by Cisco, combined with the support and services proposed by its partners, including a complex migration from and to different locations, made the proposal the best one for our needs."
Cisco worked with partners Scorpion Networking Solutions, S.A.'is a Cisco Silver Partner focused in IP Telephony and Security and Cystelcom es ATP IPCC partner (Integrator in Contact Center Solutions).
Kaan Terzioglu, Managing Director of Advanced Technology, Cisco Systems, said: "IP Communications targets key issues within the automotive manufacturing industry, such as the need to link previously disparate networks and enable information to flow across and between the many divisions, like the shop floor and the office control network. The IP architecture will help BMW to minimize costs and maximise agility."
Cisco is deploying Catalyst 6500 & 2950 series switches, with IP telephony solutions supported by the Cisco 3700 series router, Call Manager 3.3, and close to 500 IP Phones. Unified messaging is provided by Cisco Unity for all the users. The Contact Centre solutions include IPCC Enterprise Edition and IPIVR. BMW also opted for a Cisco PIX 515-FO security solution.
