KPFF’s Journey to MS Teams Calling
ABOUT KPFF
KPFF is a multi-office, multi-discipline engineering firm driven by a commitment to core values of Excellence, Trust, Relationships, Stability, and Passion. These values define their professional practise, organisational structure, and dedication to clients and employees. For over 60 years, KPFF has provided creative, practical solutions for projects of all kinds, scales, and industries. They approach every design challenge with a passion for solving problems, delivering excellence, and fostering growth and creativity among their people, partners, and profession.
CHALLENGE
KPFF operates as a decentralised IT organisation, and a few departments decided to transition to Teams Calling. While exploring Microsoft as the PSTN (Public Switched Telephony Network) provider, they encountered several obstacles with administrative controls and the interface.
KPFF had been using a legacy VOIP system developed in the early 2000s. Over the last 3-4 years, they began moving toward Microsoft Teams as their collaboration platform of choice. However, some departments still relied on analogue phone systems, making a smooth and well-timed transition essential to ensure business continuity. Due to KPFF’s decentralised nature, the transition to MS Teams Calling needed to be an organic, bottom-up process rather than a top-down deployment.
KPFF was dissatisfied with Microsoft’s administrative relationship and portal. They sought a Microsoft Certified Partner and, after evaluating several MS Teams partners, discovered CallTower. CallTower offered a competitive price point on a per-user, per-month basis, aligning with KPFF’s current communications spend. With KPFF using several disparate communication systems, CallTower’s solution made sense. Additionally, CallTower provided the necessary Teams Calling licences.
KPFF signed with CallTower and piloted their Microsoft Teams solution in several departments. The solution worked well, sparking interest in additional departments. Active departments demonstrated the solution to others, leading to organic adoption. Currently, 14 departments have migrated to CallTower’s Microsoft Teams solution, with plans to transition 10 more divisions by the end of 2023.
THE RESULTS
KPFF successfully scaled up usage of CallTower as their MS Teams provider. Despite the firm’s decentralised nature, CallTower has earned a reputation as a functional, cost-competitive calling solution with excellent support.
“Establishing an MS Teams calling solution has modernised our company with our collaboration platform of choice, CallTower’s Microsoft Teams. We have a dynamic workforce with remote, hybrid, and multi-location setups. We don’t have people tied to a desk or a desk phone. We like that their number travels with them in Teams wherever they go, whether that’s on their assigned laptop or mobile device. That is valuable to us. It all integrates into the same address book, and CallTower admin makes it easy for us. We can add DIDs as needed and break it down in the admin portal by business unit, which is important for us. This ensures our billing is consumption-based. The CallTower admin portal, [CallTower Connect], simplifies everything. This is one of the rare situations [at KPFF] where we have a bottom-up organic growth of a tool across the company. It wasn’t something standardised across the organisation but grew organically because it worked. The price point is good, it’s stable, the billing is easy—everything has made it so that it has grown on its own.”
– Rob Swingle, Enterprise IT Coordinator, KPFF
ABOUT CALLTOWER
Experience seamless, intelligent communication with CallTower, your trusted cloud communications provider.
We specialise in:
- Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)
- Collaboration
- Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
- Conversational AI (CAI)
Our expertise and commitment to exceptional Customer Experience (CX) empower businesses to connect, collaborate, and grow with ease. From streamlining workflows to proactive management and strategic guidance, our innovative and scalable solutions are designed to meet your unique business needs.
