Banking on telecom to modernise its business processes, Evalueserve (EVS) has moved away from an EPABXbased legacy system to a cutting-edge one that has helped the organisation ensure business continuity, reduce recurrent costs and add value to its existing product portfolio. tele.net tracks the development of EVS's communications infrastructure...

Background

Evalueserve is a research and analytics company specialising in market, business and investment research; data and financial analysis; intellectual property and legal process; sales support; information technology and related services to clients in a broad range of industries.

It began operating in Delhi and Gurgaon, in December 2000 with four people, and now employs more than 2,300 at research locations in India, China, Chile and Romania, and 65 plus client engagement managers who are located in all major technology, business and financial centres globally.

EVS provides knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services including customised market research solutions, business research, analytics, investment research, intellectual property and legal process services, marketing and sales support and knowledge technology services, from its global research centres in Chile, China, India and Romania.

Legacy system

According to Sachin Jain, chief information officer, the organisation had been using a relatively simple voice-based platform. The entire communications infrastructure was EPABX based.

However, in the face of mounting competition and as the organisation's business requirements expanded, there was an urgent need to expand and modernise its telecommunications infrastructure keeping in mind the twin goals of scalability and reliability.

The shift

Jain says, "Technology is changing every day and traditional telephony is heading towards IP-based platforms owing to the many benefits offered to the end-user. The EPABX set-up is the only legacy system we have and we are working towards changing it so that we can integrate a voice platform into our existing network, save a lot of cost and leverage new technologies in the best possible manner."

The organisation currently uses both traditional EPABX and IP-based PBX as separate and independent set-ups. Calls are managed by a server-based IP-PBX.In addition, the new network is based entirely on Cisco networking tools, including switches, routers, voice gateways and Cisco Call Manager –­ an IpPBX application.

EVS has offices in both India and abroad, and all offices are interconnected via multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and leased line connections.

The internet is an important medium of WAN connectivity, and the organisation has taken connections from more than one internet service provider (ISP)."We balance our loads using devices from Radware and we have WAN gateways in multiple offices within the national capital region network. Our redundancy network is well established. If one gateway fails, we can route traffic through multiple gateways," elaborates Jain.

In terms of enterprise applications, a messaging platform, email and instant messaging are being utilised. Apart from that, EVS has group-specific applications that cater to every business group within the company.

The internet is utilised for day-to-day research work and leased lines are used to connect to offices and client sites. "The internet is a strategic tool for us as we require a lot of databases, internet-based research and search tools to collect data.We also use certain applications to help us perform analytics," says Jain.

Benefits and challenges

According to Jain, the technology shift has provided them with multiple benefits."The new infrastructure can fit in easily in our data centre and uses much less space as compared to the space required for a traditional EPABX-based system. Hence, it saves on physical space and the hassle of managing two different technologies. It also provides a lot of flexibility in the system and manageability, scalability and maintenance become easier. Low-cost communication which saves a lot of money for intra-office and long distance calling are other benefits," says Jain.

Jain is of the view that the challenges are mostly from the regulatory perspective, since existing regulations do not allow them to completely move to the IP platform.

Give the rapid pace of growth in the service industry, EVS's timely upgrade to its communications infrastructure has ensured that the company stays ahead of the competition by deploying the most efficient technology practices.