Managing Technology in a Business Environment

Managing Technology in a Business Environment

The VoIP Adoption at Butler University-Case Study I

What were the primary reasons for changing the current system?

As a professional in Information Technology for the AB consulting, Inc. I have been asked about the primary reasons for the current system and its changing purposes, the Butler University has some telephony related systems which were implemented throughout the university and there are about 7000 network connections and other phone and PBX related lines. And around 2005 the university has utilized services of SBC's Centrex so that 3000 phone stations and faculty and staff members could be provided with the phone services. But what the SBC system lacked was the modern functions of telephone like intelligent call queuing and other services also like students has to share the voice mails in the dorm rooms etc, and the system was not easily customized etc. so this was the primary reason for the changing of the current system (Carol, 2007).

What role did Butler's IS department play?

The IS department which is the Information System Department and also formerly called as Information Technology Department play an integral part in the Butler University communication and networking side, as it provides it with the network connections and support around 125 servers which gives access to the faculty and students in the university with the personal PCs and LAB computers for around 1400 desktops, it also provides university with the VoIP telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol)facility and ERP system which provides a centralized management of business process within the university as well as with other stakeholders. It also has a Centrex system rather than the university owned system, the Centrex provides with the local telephone provider i.e. SBC, which provide for the university telephony services of about 640 systems in-campus. There are vast responsibilities for the IS department in the Butler University which has a variety of jobs to perform from data services to access to the users in and outside the University (Carol, 2007).

What were the roles of the vendors?

The vendor provided with different approaches for the current system and to use an efficient system for the communication. And provided with the idea to remove the in-house telephony system (as it was the main idea of the University itself too) and implement a new VoIP based system in the campus, they also have to choose an idea for the 25% of the Macintosh users and to provide with the audio and video conferencing facility also. For this the University chose five vendors, there have been alternatives provided by the vendors and keeping the cost in mind and be incurred to these requirements to satisfy. The role they played were the in house system of Cisco IPT system, berbee information networks etc (Carol, 2007).

List objectives of the pilot. Were any problems encountered?

To gain user feedback and help test features the pilot program was implemented. For the high volume users of the phones, for the testing phase of the devices people were ...