Sutherland Global Services

Sutherland Global Services (SGS) is a leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company with nearly 20 years of experience in the customer management space. Since 1986, some of the world’s most respected companies have depended on SGS to manage various aspects of customer operations. By taking advantage of SGS’s domain knowledge, quality processes and global delivery options, clients are able to dramatically improve sales, marketing and customer support results while remaining focused on core competencies.

 

SGS offers an end-to-end set of contact center and back-office outsourcing services that clients can choose to implement in either an integrated or stand-alone manner. Currently, SGS owns and operates multiple delivery centers in Canada, India, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States. The center in India is its largest with over 7,000 agents. The company’s headquarters is in Rochester, N.Y. For more information, visit www.suth.com.

SGS needed a solution that could cost effectively transport U.S.-originating voice calls to its delivery centers around the world. The company also wanted to leverage its existing Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure to deliver those calls to switches overseas by using available bandwidth. Prior to implementing the Avaya/RAD Data Communications solution, SGS was using another vendor’s network system that ran over E-1 leased lines between its call centers in the United States and India. SGS needed a new solution that would work over an E-1 connection and then be capable of seamlessly migrating to an DS-3 connections when the company was ready to convert to higher capacity international circuits. Deploying a VoIP solution that would utilize the IP infrastructure would allow the company to integrate voice and data traffic between its two sites, and use voice compression with dynamic bandwidth allocation for superior voice quality.

SGS deployed an Avaya IP Telephony Solution with an Avaya S8700 Media Server running Avaya Communication Manager for 4,000 IP stations off its U.S.-based server and 2,000 IP stations off its India-based server. SGS call center agents are using a combination of Avaya 4610 and 4620 IP Telephones. The company is also using Avaya IP Agent and is in the pilot stage with Avaya Softphone deployment. SGS also installed a RAD Vmux-2100 TDMoIP voice trunking gateway for trunking the voice calls between the U.S. and India. RAD’s Vmux-2100 was faster and easier to deploy, and more user-friendly than the previously used equipment.

• Avaya S8700 Media Server

• Avaya Communication Manager

• Avaya Call Management System

• Avaya IP 4610 and 4620 Telephones

• Avaya IP Agent

• Avaya Softphone

• RAD Data Communications Vmux-2100 Voice Trunking Gateway

• Excellent voice quality. RAD Vmux was designed to trunk voice traffic and offers quality assurance that supports superior voice quality over IP.

 

• Fast deployment and lower cost of ownership. SGS experienced a short learning curve with the capabilities of the Avaya solution. Compared to its previous platform, SGS found the process of bringing on new employees and getting them trained on the Avaya solution to be much easier and more cost effective.

 

• Ease of management and integration. SGS was able to easily set up and manage the RAD Vmux-2100 TDMoIP technology and integrate it with the Avaya solution to support trunking of T-1 circuits over an IP network. RAD’s TDMoIP trunking solution is also fully compatible with the existing Avaya system.

 

• More efficient use of physical space. While SGS’s previous solution occupied a full rack for supporting 32 E1s, RAD’s VMUX-2100 occupies significantly less space while supporting the same number of E1s.

 

• Cost savings. By using pure circuit emulation and transporting TDM traffic over an IP network, SGS gained all the benefits of a fiber optic high speed network in a campus environment. When transmitting voice traffic, the solution adds voice compression and gains 60 percent more efficiency than VoIP, which also lead to huge cost savings.

 

• Increased efficiencies. Using Avaya Automatic Call Distributors with a Vmux-2100 as a gateway provides 16-to-1 compression and when transmitted over an IP network and dramatically reduces the needed bandwidth, thereby leading to additional cost savings.

 

• New client comfort level with Avaya. Many of SGS’s new clients are familiar with the Avaya platform and its advanced call routing programs.