Unified Communications Lead to Cost Savings at Mahindra and Mahindra

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About Rs 31,500 crore Mahindra Group is among the top 10 industrial houses in India and the world's third-largest manufacturer of tractors. Its operations, run by 10,000 employees, span the globe. But as the company grew, communications between its staffers became more tenuous.

"E-mail is good communication tool but it does not facilitate real-time collaboration. Hence a lot of decisions invariably get delayed. And because it was the back bone of our communications, mail volume grew exponentially," says Arvind G. Tawde, senior. VP and CIO, Mahindra & Mahindra. The IT team knew it had to find a less expensive way to connect the company's employees. "Multiple communication devices and the cost of inter-company communication was high," says Tawde. "What we needed was a common platform to reduce overall communication cost. Our objective was to create a unified communication platform which would enable users to collaborate at anytime, anywhere and on any device including computers, laptops, PDAs, IP and analog phones," says Tawde.

Soon, other communication media was added to the platform including traditional telephony, IP telephony, video conferencing, and audio/video calling.

The team also had to ensure that the solution was user-friendly. "The younger generation is more exposed to new technologies and is heavy user of collaboration tools, while the older generation is comparatively less IT savvy. The solution needed to be easy to use to facilitate effective deployment across all segments," says Tawde.

Today M&M staffers can collaborate using IM, online file sharing and real-time editing, user presence and search, audio conferencing, on-demand video conferencing and multi-party engagements. "It is a single server architecture to provide VoIP services to all users. We have provided 100 VoIP connections for enhanced calling features and international calling." Tawde says.

The result of this single platform has been substantial cost savings and improved employee productivity. Staffers no longer have to travel or trawl through e-mail trails. With dependence on e-mail diminishing, the volume of e-mails has also reduced. The company has also eliminated the need for multiple communication devices and its staffers can still multi-task better.