Karachi, Pakistan, February 22, 2005 - Cisco Systems announced today that Gul Ahmed Textile Mills has installed Pakistan's first IP telephony network using Cisco's productivity and performance enhancing solutions.
The flexible, scalable and maximum security infrastructure will help Gul Ahmed streamline operations, reduce costs and provide employees with a variety of working solutions over a unified IP voice and data network that links its various facilities.
Gul Ahmed mangers will be able to view key supply chain-related information through a seamless integration of the ERP system with the XML interface on the Cisco IP phones.
The Cisco Intelligent Information Network, which also offers lower total cost of ownership, is central to Gul Ahmed's strategy to meet the new global competitive challenges facing the Pakistan textile industry as a result of World Trade Organisation (WTO) action abolishing textile export quotas.
"We are committed to leading the industry in the use of information and communications technology to further strengthen our operations and enhance our position as one of the best textile houses in the world," said Syed Iqbal Shehzad, IT Manager, Gul Ahmed Textile Mills. "In just a few months, this solution has already increased our productivity by 60 percent."
Previously, placing calls from one Gul Ahmed location to another took as long as 15 minutes, while customers and suppliers often couldn't reach the company because of constant busy signals. The new Cisco IP telephony system has resolved these limitations, as well as the lack of scalability and high cost of ownership.
The company carried out an intensive seven-month ROI assessment of the technology to be used moving forward. The results showed that Internet Protocol (IP) was the ideal platform. "As a global leader in IP telephony, Cisco was our natural colleague. The disruption-free migration from our legacy PBX systems to IP telephony and the success of the solution shows this was the correct decision and has encouraged us to double the number of IP phones we will deploy in the next quarter," Shehzad added.
With one main processing unit and 11 other units, Gul Ahmed needed a communications system that could provide a unified and seamless service across its operations. The Cisco solution includes unified voice and electronic messaging, direct, toll-free extension dialling between employees across all units and a single operator for all incoming and outgoing calls to and from all units. The network runs over fiber-optic cables linking many of the sites, with remaining locations connected using Cisco's wireless networking solution.
"Gul Ahmed recognized that in the increasingly competitive local, regional and global market, intelligent networking offers the right platform for streamlining voice operations, bringing powerful IP telephony features to the desktop and optimizing productivity and performance," said Ghazi Atallah, General Manager Middle East and Pakistan, Cisco Systems International BV.
The Cisco solution includes full redundancy and protection from call interruptions through dual Cisco CallManager servers configured in a single cluster to serve the 500 Cisco IP phones deployed across the 15 units. As well, separate Virtual Local Area Networks have been configured for data and voice traffic, so that any data congestion won't affect time-sensitive voice calls. Quality of Service also has been implemented on the Cisco Catalyst switches to further ensure clear, uninterrupted telephone connections.
The project included Cisco CallManager 3.3 call-processing systems, Cisco Unity unified communications solution, Cisco Media Gateways, Cisco 3500 Series Catalyst switches, Cisco Catalyst 4006 and 4503 core switches, Cisco PIX Firewalls, Cisco Aironet access points and a range of Cisco IP phones and PC-based IP softphones.
