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As we race to the end of another financial year, I am pleased to share with you, despite not being our easiest year, NSC has been able to maintain its strong financial position. We are on track to record year-on-year growth of around 20 percent at a respectable level of profitability.

This is a particularly pleasing result as the past financial year has seen NSC make significant investment across a number of areas of the business. We introduced Genesys and Nortel practices, boosted our presence in New Zealand with the appointment of three new specialist technical resources and deployed several new technical offerings, such as remote monitoring, in order to provide extended and improved service to our customers.

Our latest initiative is NSC Consulting. Just as NSC was the first integrator to bring a sophisticated Managed Services offering to the market, we are again leading the way by introducing a Consulting group brought together in response to requests from you, our customers, for a closer, ongoing business engagement with NSC. See the story below for more details on this very important undertaking.

These new areas of our business have seen our staff numbers increase as we brought on board Nortel and Genesys specialists, business analysts, domain experts, application developers and more.

In closing, I would like to offer my personal thanks to all NSC valued partners and customers for your continued support throughout the year and wish you all the very best for the new financial year. I look forward to working with you for many years to come.

Regards

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At NSC we are dedicated to helping you achieve your desired business outcomes. In order to help your business by defining and implementing processes and procedures that assist you to achieve your business and profit potential, we have introduced NSC Consulting – an independent business unit working to your agenda.

Headed by Paul Edmondson, the NSC Consulting Group comprises an extensive team of Business Consultants, Analysts, Solution Architects and Domain Experts who specialise in the development of business and technology strategies that extend across the group's core focus of Customer Experience Optimisation and Enterprise Collaboration.

The Group's five-phase engagement methodology has been developed to ensure the true identification of the challenges, opportunities and benefits are clearly reviewed, analysed and documented through each stage with formal and tangible deliverables.  Every step is designed to increase revenue, reduce costs and optimise your customer service delivery for greater business profitability. Most importantly, the NSC Consulting Group is dedicated to working to your agenda and within your timeline.

Our team of consultants has extensive experience across a broad range of industries and disciplines. For more information about NSC Consulting please email consultinggroup@nsc.net.au or consultinggroup@nsc.net.nz

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More than 22 companies with Nortel phone systems have selected leading converged communications integrator, NSC Group, as their new partner of choice since the completion of the Avaya acquisition. This brings the total to more than 204 sites and just under 7,000 Nortel voice users being managed by NSC.

Following months of uncertainty, Nortel users are welcoming the new security and stability delivered by Avaya's commitment to ensuring the majority of Nortel products remain part of the Avaya technology roadmap going forward. As an Avaya Platinum business partner, our experience and expertise has created a compelling reason for many Nortel users to become part of the NSC family.

Over the past four months, NSC has employed 15 staff, with Nortel-specific expertise, in the Solutions and Services Practices as well as upskilling existing Consultants, Project Managers and Service Desk teams in Nortel products.

The inclusion of the Avaya (Nortel) Data products adds a new dimension to the NSC product offering and enables the company to provide a complete voice and data solution from a single vendor to its customers.

NSC's consulting-led approach, deep technical skills and ITIL-based services offering are proving irresistible to the Nortel community in Australia and New Zealand.  We are pleased to welcome these organisations to the NSC family and look forward to sharing their journey on the path to great business success.

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NSC New Zealand is hosting a half day seminar on the ‘Next Generation Contact Centre’ in Wellington at the Intercontinental on July 6th and in Auckland at SkyCity on July 7th from 8am to 12pm.

Contact Centres have evolved from standalone voice-based call centres to distributed multi-channel contact centres and now have arrived at context-based customer service. The Next Generation Context-based Customer Service streamlines information, processes and communications. It provides consistent and high value end customer engagement while fuelling sustainable business growth.

 New Zealand Social Media commentator, Alex Lovell from OBD will cover the role of social media and the importance of online reputation. With the uptake of Blogs, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others it is important to prevent a bad experience blowing out of control via the viral spiral.  "We are seeing the customer shift from a Consumer of Information to a Publisher of Information," said Lovell. "It is important to understand how this can impact on your business and customer/brand experience."

According to John Camp, NSC Consulting, in the last couple of years voice biometrics has progressed significantly into a viable and important security technology. "Every person's voice is unique enabling voice biometrics to be used to increase data security, route calls intelligently and reduce transfer rate and handling time. This is why it will play a key role in the next generation of contact centres."

Keith Flanagan from Verint will discuss "the voice of the customer" and the importance of real-time customer interaction. "Enterprises often overlook the importance of customer feedback and fail to use it effectively as a source for improvement. However it is now possible to capture the voice of the customer through real-time customer feedback, quality monitoring and speech analytics."

Topics covered include "What do your Customers really want?", "Social Media and the Contact Centre", "Voice Biometrics and the Role of Speech ", "The Voice of the Customer" and more.

The Summit is aimed at Contact Centre Managers, Workforce Planners, Operations Managers, CIOs and Marketing Managers. Attendance is FREE. To register click here

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South East Water, one of Melbourne's three State-owned water retailers, provides water, sewerage and recycled water services to 1.4 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in the city’s south-east region. The company has around $2 billion of assets and almost 800 information workers.

With a strategic focus on growing value and improving its customer focus through innovative technologies, South East Water went to the market in search of an IP Telephony and Unified Communications solution to set the platform for the next decade.

The move was driven, in part, by the need to replace the ageing and comparatively expensive Telstra CustomNet phone system which had been in place for the previous 11 years.

In keeping with its focus on innovation, South East Water was looking to provide an integrated Unified Communications platform for state-of-the-art collaboration and productivity tools throughout the organisation by leveraging its existing investments in Microsoft Office Communications Server and Exchange Server.  CIO, Marcus Darbyshire was clear that the enterprise telephony platform it was seeking for its contact centres and general business users must be mature, high performing and have rock solid reliability.

After issuing an RFT to the market, tender responses were short listed down to three vendors including offerings from Nortel and Cisco partners as well as the NSC/Avaya solution.

South East Water selected the NSC Group solution based on its ability to meet its requirements, the estimated cost - both upfront and ongoing, the maturity of the solution, the competitive value proposition and the understanding demonstrated by NSC of South East Water's plans for enhancing and extending its Microsoft-based Unified Communications platform.

The Avaya IP Telephony and Microsoft Unified Communications system covers three offices; Heatherton which is the corporate head office and main contact centre; Lynbrook which houses the Operations staff and 24x7 emergencies contact centre and Dandenong South where its design and construction engineers are located. Combining desk phones with faxes and modems, South East Water is using around 950 telephony devices.

The Avaya solution is designed for disaster recovery wherein sites can operate in stand-alone mode, or one data centre can take over and run the enterprise's voice communication needs. Equipment comprises Avaya S8510 server in head office with an Avaya S8510 Local Survivable Processor (LSP) server in Lynbrook and a S8300 LSP server South Dandenong. The solution also includes Avaya G450 Gateways, CMS Reporting, Avaya Contact Centre Express and Avaya Voice Portal to replace three aging IVRs.

South East Water was already an intensive user of Microsoft Office Communicator (and many other Microsoft software products) which was used predominantly as a presence engine and instant messaging system. Now, with the integration into Avaya's IP Telephone solution, South East Water can take advantage of a single Unified Communications desktop interface to provide Instant Messaging, Video communication and Remote Call Control of the Avaya handsets.

Also, Avaya SIP Enablement Services integrated Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging into the Avaya system to provide voicemail and unified messaging services for its staff. Field staff can now access office voice messages on their smartphones and use Outlook Voice Access to listen to their emails, look up contacts or cancel appointments.

The Avaya OSPC soft consol used at reception is providing integration to South East Water's Active Directory and used in conjunction with Office Communicator, can display full staff presence information for the busy receptionists.

A key requirement of the four month implementation project was to minimise outages and disruptions to South East Waters' vital voice communication function. This was particularly important for the contact centres which manage 3000 calls each business day and provide after-hours contact centre services for a number of other water companies, councils and other businesses.

"From the start, NSC was responsive and accommodating to our specific needs," said Mark Skilton, IT Project Manager, South East Water. "This included a proactive and professional approach to addressing changing requirements throughout the project. For example, the swift inclusion of the new 75 person Dandenong South office soon after completing the RFT process and being flexible on our training programs even after completion of the statement of works."

Skilton added, "Investment in organisational change management to prepare the business for the impact of change of this magnitude should not be underestimated. NSC's experience in this aspect was very valuable."

According to Marcus Darbyshire, CIO, South East Water, "The NSC team engaged all stakeholders and project team members' very effectively. I received excellent feedback about NSC's people from both business unit managers and, the often hard to impress, technical team. NSC's smooth deployment of the Avaya IP Tel and Microsoft UC solution was really impressive."

The project was delivered in four months and consolidated handsets from 12 different types down to three, making it simpler for staff to operate in 'hot desk' environments. "For such a major change to our communications and customer service tools, the transition was virtually seamless," Darbyshire added.

The Business Benefits: Productivity & Customer service improvements

Avaya's Contact Centre Express solution has delivered direct and immediate enhancements to South East Water's customer service capability.  According to Lou Vacca, South East Water's Customer Contact Manager, "The Avaya skills based routing system has made dramatic improvements in getting calls answered during busy periods. This combined with the real-time CMS reporting provides the ability to quickly manage agent levels in peak call periods thereby enhancing our ability to meet KPI's such as responding to 93 percent of calls within 30 seconds."

Vacca added, "Call centre agents are also more productive with the Unified Communications features such as 'click to call', checking their colleague's presence and responding to customer voicemails received through the email system."  The transfer of the telephony management skills in-house has also enabled South East Water to expand its phone-based services by easily adding more call queues.

A post-implementation survey of staff satisfaction demonstrated that South East Water's information workers had adopted the integrated Unified Communications features with enthusiasm. Darbyshire commented "Staff told us they love dialling their contacts from their PC, the pop up 'toast' with caller ID, the missed call log and being able to receive and forward voice mails within Microsoft Outlook."

For South East Water's hundreds of field-based workers, the simultaneous ring to mobile (EC500) feature has improved communication dramatically. Staff also appreciates the ability to log in to spare handsets when visiting offices to transfer their number temporarily and have commented on the improved clarity of voice conversations.

The IT support teams also appreciate the benefits delivered by the new IP telephony.  "Provisioning a new staff member or changing their location is now a two minute job - data centre cable re-patching is a now thing of the past. Setting up conference calls is also now a breeze."

The cost savings from the move to the Avaya IP Telephony and Microsoft Unified Communications solution were also immediate. "South East Water has budgeted to save almost $200,000 p.a. in direct costs as a result of replacing its telephony platform. Along with productivity and collaboration improvements from the Unified Communications integration, zero cost calls between major offices and a healthy product roadmap from Avaya and Microsoft, the project has been a resounding success financially," said CIO, Darbyshire.

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The second annual Sydney Business Collaboration Summit held on May 19 was a great success with more than 400 registrations. It introduced several direct customer experiences which unveiled strategic competitive advantages for organisations wishing to drive business agility, deliver customer service excellence and maintain their focus on achieving successful business outcomes.

Utilising market-proven technology solutions allows an organisation to differentiate itself from the competition and provide a superior customer experience. The case studies and solutions covered at the Business Collaboration Summit provided attendees with practical technology management strategies to help them proactively navigate the journey from vision to successful business outcomes.

Speakers included Karen McLachlan, David Jones; David Hassan, Virgin Blue; Darren Birch, AFL; Paul Malt, Auto and General Insurance;  Vanessa Nicol, Virgin Mobile Australia; Iggy Pintado, ConnectGen; Michael Meredith, ATA; Charles Nolan, University of NSW and Lawrence Hiliker, Hostworks.

Attendees also spent time viewing the latest business optimisation building blocks at the accompanying showcase with technology solutions on show from Avaya, APC, Verint, Microsoft, Plantronics, Inference, Genesys, Enterasys, Jabra and TPG/Soul.

During the Summit, a silent auction resulted in more than $7000 being raised for the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. Congratulations to all the successful bidders, we hope you enjoy your winnings and thank you for your kind donation.

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NSC has devised a Technology Change Management Program ‘Comfort Zone’ to enable you to proceed with delivering a new generation of business services while reducing the inherent risks of supporting a diverse and complex pool of technologies.

NSC has devised a Technology Change Management Program 'Comfort Zone' to enable you to proceed with delivering a new generation of business services while reducing the inherent risks of supporting a diverse and complex pool of technologies.

The Technology Change Management program has been specifically tailored to cater for the mindset shift required by existing functional areas to deliver and support additional high quality IT services.

The goal of NSC Comfort Zone is to provide IT support staff with the requisite skills and processes to deliver desired business outcomes supported by agreed Service Levels.

NSC provides a 'Comfort Blanket' around functional areas affected by technological change and a business adoption strategy to ensure new business services are clearly articulated to the business community.

This program addresses the concerns you have expressed around deploying emerging technologies within your current environment and the organisational change the introduction of the new technologies places upon your ability to support it. 

NSC provides the resources and support that allow your IT personnel to expand their Comfort Zone in a risk aversive approach. The NSC Resource and Support Pool are both onsite as well as in NSC offices.

Timelines are established within a project schedule to cater for the key learning outcomes required for you to have complete confidence in your ability to manage the ongoing operational support.  

Comfort Zone Kick-Off

The Comfort Zone Kick-off provides an overview of the program objectives and deliverables. It defines the organisational structure to support the program. Reporting lines are established along with escalation management processes. A business awareness strategy identifies the methods to socialise the new business services to the business users. For more information email managedservices@nnsc.net.au or managedservices@nsc.net.nz

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NSC participated in the 2010 Network Centre Warfare conference in Canberra in April. Drawing from national and international perspectives, attendees gained essential information on Defining the Latest Strategies and Technology Enhancing Network Centric Warfare, were provided with an Update on the Policy & Governance surrounding NCW within Australia

Speaking at the conference on behalf of NSC was Rear Admiral Chuck Saffell US Navy (Ret), Recent CEO and Chairman , Nortel Government Solutions who discussed "Are Net-Centric War Fighters And Net-Centric Business On The Same Glide Path?".

The evolution of network development in the commercial sector is key to the what, where and when for the information backplane of Network Centric Warfare. Chuck's presentation examined the technologies driving next-generation innovation in the IT industry and the ubiquitous communications and network "servicing" applications.

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End of Financial Year - Handset Clearance

	IP Phones	SALE PRICE
700383920	IP Phone 9640 with Colour display	$ 490
700461205	IP Phone 9620C with Colour display	$ 325
700461197	IP Phone 9620L	$ 275
700383912	IP Phone 9610 - Walk-up phone for common areas	$ 155
700458508	IP Phone 1603SW Black	$ 135

	Digital Phones	SALE PRICE
700381585	Digital 2420 Grey	$ 470
700381999	Digital 2410 Grey	$ 340
700258494	Digital  6408D+ White	$ 220

	Button Expansion Modules	SALE PRICE
700383417	SMB24 Expansion Module for 9630,9640,9650 IP phones	$ 155
700381825	EU24BL Expansion Module for 4621 IP phones	$ 150
700381817	EU24 Expansion Module for 2420 & 4620 phones	$ 150

Contact NSC Client Services on 1300 366 304 (Option 2) or client_services@nsc.net.au for Enquires

Prices only valid until stocks last or 30 June 2010

Prices exclude GST

Also contact us to enquire about our refurbished stock available