Baptist Union of Queensland, Panasonic KX-NS1000 case study

Panasonic Communication Solutions provide substantial cost savings, better call handling and operational efficiencies.

Challenge

A mish mash of legacy equipment spread throughout multiple remote sites, all with varying degrees of existing telephone systems was providing cumbersome and ineffective, resulting in high communication costs.

Solution

The consolidation of PBX functions into a single server, combined with an upgrade of IP phones resulted in a system that was uniform across all sites and visible to all users, providing an overall reduction in operational costs.

Extremely happy with the high performance of the Panasonic NS1000 system. Reliability is excellent and it is meeting requirements and expectations.
Phillip McCallun, Director of Administrative Services
Baptist Union of Queensland

Supporting the wider community

Having incorporated their first church in 1927, the Baptist Union of Queensland celebrated their 90th anniversary in 2017. In fact, Baptist has been serving the wider communicaty in Queensland since 1855. Located in Gaythorne, Brisbane, Baptist Union of Queensland considers itself “a family of churches”, serving a wide constituency and offers a broad set of programs to support local churches and its broader community. Spread over a truly “Australia-sized” territory, the Baptist Union of Queensland supports seven educational facilities and community care programs.

Some of these include:

A database of resource materials
Baplink loan program for churches and community facilities
Carinity community services for families, aged, homeless
Maylon College for theological education

When the certified Panasonic unified communications reseller, Commander Centre Brisbane West, came onboard, they analysed the matrix of communications technology fielded by the Baptist Union of Queensland. Much of the legacy equipment and the system was outdated, inefficient, cumbersome and costly. The first challenge was that all remote site systems were handled by local management resulting in a mish-mash of telephony that could not be improved through unified communications options. This resulted in high communications costs. Next, PSTN and ISDN trunks were employed on a tolling basis resulting in high monthly costs. There was no strategy in place to bring remote sites in line for cost savings or to take advantage of evolving technology.

The right solution to improve connectivity and response time

Initially, a test solution was introduced at the Gaythorne location in Brisbane linking it to a parish and school in Hevey Bay and another parish church in Brisbane. The understanding was that when this system was implemented and tested, Panasonic solutions would be offered to all Baptist Union of Queensland. In addition to improved productivity, better management of call handling and cost control, a key requirement for this client was assurance of redundancy across the proposed system.

The solution offered by Commander Centre Brisbane West was spearheaded by the powerful and feature-rich Panasonic KX-NS1000. With Panasonic’s One-look Networking, a single KX-NS1000 provides consolidated PBX functionality for two or more networked NS series. No additional servers are needed. The system can be expanded easily via a web-based maintenance console.

With maximum support of up to 16 sites, there is more than enough capacity to link all of Queensland Baptist’s remote facilities into one powerful, cost-effective network. The KX-NS1000’s built-in Media Relay Gateway (MRG) also enables installation of IP phones in locations distant from the office, such as the homes of teleworkers. Also by using a software phone app on a smartphone or PC, mobile workers can also use IP phones as extensions when they are away from the office.

The KX-NS1000 was paired with a total of 97 Panasonic KX-NT500 series IP handsets to provide the failover redundancy that was a top priority, as well as unified communications and visibility of all users.

Other system advantages included easy call flow settings to enable overflow reception or remote site calls to be answered by HO when remote sites are unattended, and flexibility in call handling with SIP trunks either centralised, handled on a site by site basis, or both.

Short and long term savings due to a boost in productivity

The benchmarks for success of the system deployed for the Baptist Union of Queensland were measurable savings over their legacy system’s operating costs as well a single platform solution that could handle numerous remote sites and provide them with system functionality and expandability.

The legacy system was owned outright so network savings were the metric. The new system was deployed in late December 2017 so real gains in productivity utilising Direct in Dial and IVR capability and remote sites linked to the main PABX are ongoing and still being measured; however, expected improvements include a minimum of 10% against previous operational costs. Cost reductions against total current telephony costs are estimated to exceed AUD4,000 per month, or a 33% monthly saving.

Tailoring solutions to unique needs

At first glance the Baptist Union of Queensland’s communications presented a unique challenge due to a number of factors including mixed legacy systems, lack of unified functionality and multiple remote sites. However, by working with Commander Centre Brisbane West, a cost-effective solution was reached that satisfied their unique requirements and provided real savings from the start.