City of Riverside, Missouri – A Mitel Case Study
In a time when severe reductions in public sector spending are near the top of the news, it is refreshing to hear that a municipality found it important to invest in a new UC system to improve its communications and operations. So is the case of The City of Riverside, Missouri, outside of Kansas City. Riverside installed a new Mitel UC system late in 2010 after undergoing a competitive procurement. How Mitel and American Telephone, a Mitel Exclusive Business Partner, became Riverside’s provider of choice and how the system is being used (both things known before the procurement and things learned since it was installed) is the subject of this article.
As in most full system change-outs (rip-and-replace), there was a compelling event. In this case, Riverside needed a new telephone system because their old system could no longer be supported. The new system would be designed to support the administrative departments, Public Safety (Police and Fire) and Public Works - a total of about 150 users with about 120 of them, mobile. The municipal phone system is separate from the schools and, while it connects to and supports 9-1-1, the PSAP is a different system. In addition, the users felt they were not trained to effectively use the old system, and its voice-mail did not support always-mobile employees (those without a physical desk-phone). These became two requirements in the RFP.
Feeling that they were not personally qualified to make this important procurement on their own, Riverside hired a consultant with prior experience with municipal projects to provide the essential expertise of developing and managing the RFP process. Complete telephony capabilities and overall system reliability and support were the most important considerations, although a fair price was also a requirement. 24X7 reliability and operations was critical since both Public Safety and Public Works, which are around-the-clock critical operations, use the system. The system supports multiple buildings in one system, previously separate.
In all, four bidders responded with systems from Avaya, Cisco and Mitel being submitted. The Cisco solution was eliminated as the city felt that the channel partner bidding its system was too new and might not provide the reliable and essential support Riverside requires. The pricing among the contenders was not significantly different. American Telephone and Mitel really won the day because of the quality of the demonstration they presented, with the support of a Mitel representative. Key was the range of the cordless phones and the ease of use of the twinning of desk and cell phones - both very important with the largely mobile workforce of Riverside. With the cordless handsets, admin employees aren’t fixed to their desks.
While the Mitel UC Advanced Mobile Client for BlackBerry integration wasn’t discussed until the demo, this capability, including updated presence, has proven critical. The called-party and location information (of the officer on patrol) are available whenever the caller, oftentimes a witness with critical and timely information, chooses to call and talk “now” - a voice message would never work.
Since the installation, Public Safety has setup a “situation Room” where it can collaborate effectively with other safety departments to manage emergencies. Also, hot-desking has become another capability supporting workforce mobility.
American Telephone indicated that their proposal to Riverside was a change in their philosophy to give the customer the opportunity to see what is possible (with a broad demonstration) and allowed Riverside to choose from the full menu.
Although not considered as part of the initial project, there are several areas for future investigation and possible implementation. For example, and surprising to me, given my significant exposure to government projects, there didn’t seem to be a recognized need to integrate the phone system with the private radios that are ubiquitous in both public safety and public works departments. Even when probed, the city felt that the mobile integration with cell phones was sufficient. Also, the overall focus on voice - both fixed and mobile - was surprising, given the broad and growing acceptance of integrating multi-modal communications (IM/presence, e-mail, conferencing, etc.). Also, there was no discussion about linking administrative municipal processes such as citizen outreach or collections with the UC system.
Overall, a good success story for the 30,000-plus residents and many visitors to Riverside, that demonstrates the power of good cooperation between the customer, the consultant, the channel partner and the vendor all focusing on meeting the critical customer needs and learning from the conversations, the RFP and demonstrations. Something the entire UC space needs to keep in mind - cooperation and focus on customer needs, not just pushing all the things in the product catalog.