Hugo Hamann

Mobile Working across Different Sites with innovaphone myApps

The company Hugo Hamann GmbH & Co. KG is an office furniture retailer offering a full range of office furniture, office supplies and office technology, which can look back on more than 100 years of company tradition. In addition to its headquarters in Kiel, the company is represented across Northern Germany with seven other branches. The outdated telephone system has now been replaced by the modern work and communications solution, innovaphone myApps.

As the conventional PBX system used for telephony at Hugo Hamann no longer performed reliably and did not provide any modern applications such as UC or CTI functionalities, the company decided to install a new communications environment. The managers responsible for the transition determined that one of the requirements that the new system had to meet was “one-number concept”, meaning that it should be possible to reach employees at their personal extension number wherever they are. Another important point for the multi-store retailer was to ensure the individual branches were inter-connected, allowing business processes to be designed easily and efficiently with excellent communication across different sites. In addition, it was important to ensure that the transition process did not disrupt normal business.

When asked why they chose the innovaphone myApps work and communications solution, Jesse Reppin, project manager for the project innovaphone at Hugo Hamann, answered that after a thorough selection process: “The innovaphone system is the optimal solution for the entire company group, especially with regard to location-independent and mobile working. Furthermore, the upcoming migration from ISDN to SIP poses no problem with innovaphone, so that we are able to design this according to our wishes and we are free to select which steps to take when. The innovaphone myApps work and communications environment means we are very flexible and can readjust our communication processes to changing requirements at any time.”

After installing two innovaphone IP6010 VoIP gateways in a master standby scenario (HA) at the company headquarters in Kiel, Hugo Hamann has a reliable backup scenario: If one gateway fails, the redundantly installed second gateway seamlessly takes over, thus safeguarding ongoing operations against communication failures. Highest connection security is guaranteed by the innovaphone Reverse Proxy, which is installed as an application in a Hyper-V environment (IPVA). The innovaphone myApps work and communications solution is also operated in a virtual Hyper-V environment. myApps is used as a CTI client, the technical support and sales departments also make intensive use of the innovaphone Softphone app and innovaphone Mobility with the RCC app and have thus been able to significantly improve the availability and efficiency of communication processes. In the individual branches of the office equipment retailer, smaller innovaphone IP811 VoIP gateways, an all-in-one box for PBX and UC installations up to 200 users, are used as slaves. Thanks to smooth migration, the entire transition of the communications infrastructure could be carried out during normal business and without any downtime. The administration department also benefits significantly from the transition to innovaphone myApps: a large number of apps for installing, administrating and configurating the innovaphone system are now available to employees. All tasks can be completed in one central client.

The transition was a quantum leap, especially concerning the integration of employees who work out of the office: They can now be reached under their personal extension number wherever they are, and they use the innovaphone Mobility and the innovaphone Softphone apps on their end devices.

Jesse Reppin’s conclusion is clear: “The fact that the innovaphone solution has enabled us to adapt and optimize our communication processes to fit our business processes has had a positive effect on the performance of the entire company. By using this flexible communication infrastructure, we will be able to offer our customers a much higher quality of service in the future than we have in the past.”