15 January 2010

Yapi Kredi, the first national private bank of Turkey, deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 client to help its employees communicate and collaborate more efficiently.

As the fourth largest private bank in Turkey, Yapi Kredi provides a variety of financial services and products, including pension fund management, credit cards, commercial leases, insurance policies and brokerage services. Founded in 1944, the company has around six million active customers with a work force of close to 17,000 employees, nearly 850 branches, and subsidiaries in Russia and other countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

In 2005, the bank began deploying various communications technologies to complement its existing Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone system. These included Microsoft Office Live Meeting and the Windows Messenger instant messaging (IM) client. The company also used Microsoft Office 2007 suites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

In late 2007, the Yapi Kredi IT department began evaluating technologies that could address growing operational challenges and enhance communication and collaboration among dispersed employees and teams.

“We have teams in our three regional headquarters that often need to collaborate on various projects, but they needed better software to help them do that,” says Sinan Erdem Özer, head of units for IT infrastructure and service units. “The bank was also concerned that there was no way to keep a history of IM conversations. Plus, we wanted to develop distance-learning tools for employees that could help cut down on travel expenses while showing who attends the meetings.”

Yapi Kredi decided to deploy Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 client software to create a unified communications system. Office Communications Server 2007 R2, which was deployed across the company in about three weeks during April 2009, interoperates with a number of other Microsoft products, including the Office 2007 suites, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server, and Microsoft Forefront Security for Office Communications Server.

Office Communications Server also works with the Active Directory service in the Windows Server 2008 operating system, which authenticates employees when they log on to their computers. The Active Directory logon process automatically signs them in to the Office Communications Server functions.

We have teams in our three regional headquarters that often need to collaborate on various projects, but they needed better software to help them do that

Sinan Erdem Özer, Yapi Kredi The bank uses a Dialogic media gateway for IP-based calls that employees can conduct with the Office Communicator 2007 R2 client on desktop and portable PCs or with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile, which is available on smartphones used by about 1,200 employees. The PC-based calls help augment the PBX system. All employees at the bank’s three regional headquarters and in the IT Department have access to the full range of audio, video, and Web conferencing functionality in Office Communications Server.

Employees in branch offices have access to IP-based voice functionality through the Web conferencing feature. The bank has also been taking advantage of the Unified Messaging capabilities in Exchange Server 2007 by routing voice-mail messages to users’ inboxes in the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 messaging and collaboration client, where employees can click on a message to listen to the voice mail.

The bank also uses the presence and IM features of Office Communications Server. Presence technology provides colour indicators that appear in the Office Communicator client and applications like Office Outlook 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007, showing whether users are available and what kind of communications they prefer, such as IM or phone calls. With the presence technology, users can obtain contact information at a glance. They can send an IM to one person or invite multiple people to a conferencing session within the IM window for convenient communications. The bank logs all IM conversations, and it has federated its Office Communications Server instant messaging with important external companies.

In addition, the bank relies heavily on the Group Chat feature in Office Communications Server 2007 R2. By using Group Chat, employees can have topic-based, multiparty discussions that persist over time, which helps to create efficient information sharing and group discussions. The history of a conversation is maintained so teams in different locations and departments can review discussions even when users are online at different times.

“We used the Group Chat feature during a project on remote banking fraud,” says Ali Serhan Çetin, senior system administrator in the Yapi Kredi messaging and mobile services department. “When we encountered problems during the project, team members entered information into the chat room so that all project members were informed at the same time. It helped us avoid unnecessary phone calls and e-mail traffic, saving us a lot of time.”

By deploying Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Yapi Kredi has been able to significantly enhance communication and collaboration for the bank’s dispersed employees. The features of Office Communications Server help facilitate efficient collaboration between individuals and teams.

“Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is vital for creating a unified communications platform for the bank,” says Özer. “Our people are using a lot of communications tools- both hardware and software- during their workdays. Office Communications Server provides features that help pull these tools together, like the presence technology that shows up in Office Outlook 2007 or telephone calls that can be escalated to Web conferences. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 interoperates with different communications tools to help us address key business needs.”

This interoperability with other Microsoft products also helps to produce a seamless experience for users and an efficient environment for the IT department. “As Office Communications Server 2007 R2 works with Active Directory, there is no need for the IT department to develop or deploy additional software or special configurations,” Özer says. “People simply log on to their PCs and they can begin using the features of Office Communications Server.”

Using Office Communications Server for remote training of employees is helping Yapi Kredi cut down on travel time and costs. “Our training unit set up a programme for all of our branch employees to train them remotely using the Web conferencing in Office Communications Server 2007 R2,” says Özer. “It has been a huge benefit in terms of reducing training expenses.”

The company is also using Web conferencing and Group Chat to streamline IT support operations. “Office Communications Server 2007 R2 has helped improve our internal customer service help desk,” says Özer. “The IT department can use Web conferencing to communicate with employees about software. They also can use the Group Chat function to note a serious problem and then share information among the IT staff when a solution is found. It is helping the responsiveness of our help desk, which helps our employees be more productive.”
 

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