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Improved flexibility, mobility and accessibility with WorldSmart™ Cloud-based Unified Communications hosted services

"Having an integrated communication system with the flexibility to scale, full mobility support to move around, and complete accessibility to our corporate resources from satellite offices was critical. That is why we chose PanTerra’s WorldSmart services."

Jim Wells, IT Director, M-Factor

Background

M-Factor, Inc. is a leading provider of marketing investment management systems that helps leading consumer marketing organizations maximize their return on investment. M-Factor is a global firm with its headquarters in San Mateo, California and satellite offices in the US and in London, UK. It offers a hosted suite of software applications that allows marketers to continuously plan, track, and optimize marketing investments. International marketing giants like Coca-Cola, General Mills, Wendy’s and McDonald’s have selected M-Factor’s Marketing Investment Management (M3) software and services to analyze data from many sources, facilitate decision-making, and improve their bottom line performance.

Challenge

M-Factor’s highly experienced professional services team offers a wide array of services to help their customers with everything from initial configuration through training and technical support. They work with each customer to resolve technical support issues quickly and efficiently via phone, email and the web with 24/7 support. With its fast growing business in a global market, having instant, reliable, multimedia communications is critical to achieving customer satisfaction in a demanding environment.

M-Factor previously had an obsolete PBX telephone system at their headquarters. Based on old PBX and voicemail technology, the system was not upgradeable and was limited in performance. Its voicemail capabilities could not be easily integrated with other messaging applications such as Outlook. There were serious limitations when adding, moving, and changing lines and remote satellite offices could not access headquarters resources easily.

After evaluating several hosted solutions from large telecom carriers and emerging service providers, M-Factor found that PanTerra’s WorldSmart solution to be the only one that met their needs in terms of flexibility, mobility and accessibility.

"I had followed the telecom industry and I knew that buying on-premise equipment again would be a mistake,” said Jim Wells, IT Director. “I was interested in moving to a hosted environment for voice and data. However, what was absolutely critical was the flexibility to support growth, accessibility to facilitate staffs working remotely with corporate resources, and to collaborate with clients globally, as well as mobility support for those on the go. When we nailed down to two providers that met our requirements from the crowd, we found the other one was three to four times higher priced than PanTerra."

Solution

M-Factor reviewed many hosted solutions in the market and then conducted a complete trial of PanTerra’s On-Demand Unified Communications service called WorldSmart. It offers multiple integrated services over a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, eliminating all the separate hardware, software, integration, and maintenance costs. WorldSmart delivers business grade services through a multi-carrier communication network without the IT hassles that are inherent in an on-premise based environment.

M-Factor was able to address its business needs with applications such as advanced business voice, audio and web conferencing, web collaboration, inbound and outbound call center services, desktop sharing and remote desktop access, and secure instant messaging (IM), all delivered within a unified user experience. M-Factor initially installed 45 seats, with two-thirds at the company’s headquarters and the rest of them accommodating the US and international remote offices.

"A communication system with worldwide presence provides tremendous benefits to our business,” says Mr. Wells, “The PanTerra solution ensures that our clients and staffs have the ability to always get in touch with each other no matter what time it is or where they are in the world. It would have been fatal in the long run, if our communications fell behind. This is why we have elected to start completely afresh and centralize our communication and collaboration with the PanTerra SaaS datacenter. The platform enables us to make every function available to every user quickly and painlessly without splicing several systems."

WorldSmart combined the best of mobility and IP telephony technology to satisfy M-Factor’s dynamic needs. It offered the most flexible and cost-effective solution while meeting the stringent demands for high quality service. With such a fast growing business, M-Factor needed a communications system to ensure that clients, suppliers and staffs could always stay in touch, regardless of their geographic locations and time zones. PanTerra’s carrier grade datacenter hosts all the features and functionalities for M-Factor’s staff to access as long as there is an Internet connection. Office and remote staffs have complete freedom of movement, as the communications goes with the person and not the phone.

WorldSmart is composed of a flexible combination of service modules. Without upfront costs for hardware or software, this solution has the flexibility to turn on any service with the desired feature and capability needed. As M-Factor grows, more features and capabilities can be added without any hassle.

"The best thing I like about PanTerra’s solution is the mobility,” explains Mr. Wells. “At any time, we can move our IP phones to anywhere, such as home or remote offices, and simply plug into the Internet connection to work with our corporate resources and communicate with our clients and colleagues around the world. Or you can just carry our laptop that has the soft-phone integrated with the WorldSmart secure Instant Messaging. The Outlook exchange integration is really cool. Voicemail, fax and emails are automatically delivered to a single unified box, enabling easy access, archiving and playback of messages from anywhere."

WorldSmart is designed with future-proof technology which can be built up to facilitate M-Factor’s ambitious growth strategy. It is possible to easily install and uninstall changes to support the business growth. Services on the IP phones can be turned up in minutes on a mass scale using PanTerra’s StartUp tool kit. New features are immediately available to everyone once they are updated at the PanTerra datacenter.

“The service makes it much simpler to manage our communications. The communication system gives us a platform with all the features we can think of and we save time all round. All things considered, it helps deliver a sound return on investment,” Mr. Wells continues. “We understand the software industry, which is a very dynamic world and we need to keep pace with this, so flexibility is the key to a successful communications solution. PanTerra’s solution is expandable and enables M-Factor to adapt and meet our ever-evolving needs.”

Key Results and Benefits

• Eliminates on-premise hardware and software, integration, and maintenance costs
• Voice, web collaboration, in-bound and out-bound call center and messaging services
• Increased productivity from seamless communications and effective collaboration
• Flexibility to support office and mobile staff and dynamic growth in size and locations
• Proven reliability and complete redundancy to ensure the highest quality of service
• On demand service with per seat pricing options and lower total cost of ownership

About M-Factor

M-Factor is helping leading consumer marketing organizations improve their marketing ROI with M3 -- a unique system for managing marketing, promotional investments, and product pricing. M3 offers an innovative combination of forward looking analytics, simulation, and optimization that that allows marketers to continuously plan, track, and optimize marketing spending and typically delivers bottom line improvements equivalent to 10%-15% of trade and marketing spending.

About PanTerra Networks

PanTerra Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of on-demand unified communications with its WorldSmart™ software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. The company is privately held with its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Research and Development located in Hyderabad, India. For more information, please visit www.panterranetworks.com or call +1 408.702.2200.