Challenges, Risks and Critical Success Factors. Here are a few things you should expect to accomplish on your VoIP project: Increase return on assets, reduce costs, minimize service disruption, reduce the cost of re-work, ensure that performance supports revenue generation.

1. Initiating a Successful
Project for VoIP
Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC
By Jeff Salazar

2. Where Do You Begin?
• Select a Project Manager.
• Determine company culture and existing systems.
• Divide your project into phases.
• Uncover initial requirements, assumptions, risks, constraints and existing
agreements.
• Assess project and product feasibility within the given constraints.
• Create measurable objectives.
• Understand the business case.
• Develop your project charter.
• Identify stakeholders, and determine expectations, influence and impact.
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: RMC “Rita’s Process Chart”, 2013 2

3. Challenges, Risks and Critical Success Factors
In 2006, Mark Hurd, then chairman and CEO at HP, said ‘the number
one risk factor in any organization is lack of accurate information’.
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Axelos “ITIL Service Strategy”, 2011 Edition. 3

4. IT Spending, How Do You Stack Up?
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Gartner
• The average company spends about 4% of gross revenue on IT.
• The industries that spend the most on IT are financial services,
IT and telecommunications.
• The typical firm spends about $6,600 per year per employee on IT.
• IT head count comprises 5% to 7% of the total employee population
in the typical enterprise.
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5. Operational Benefits of IP Telephony
In this example a university with
$58 million in annual revenue with
four locations that required 800 handsets.
• Moves, Adds and Changes.
• Voice Trunks
• Equipment Maintenance
• Local Loops
Five-year Financial Gain: $2,699,186
Savings
Category
Annual
Savings
MAC $107,429
Voice Trunks $493,071
Equipment
Maintenance
$14,286
Local Loops $30,343
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Nemertes Research 5

6. Best Practice: Align with PMBOK® Framework
Initiating
Process
Group
Planning
Process
Group
Executing
Process
Group
Monitoring
and
Controlling
Process Group
Closing
Process
Group
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: PMI PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition, 2013
Have your service provider prepare a VoIP project plan that meets the specific business
requirements and goals of the initiative and completion of the deliverables.
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7. Focus on Results
Conduct hands-on meetings to share information
concerning the impending rollout.
Ensure adequate tools and templates exist to
support the execution of activities.

8. Optimize Project Pace and Schedule
Minimize disruption by planning your IP transition to
follow your LAN infrastructure upgrades by a few weeks.

9. Leadership Alignment: Initiate a Project Web Site
Create a SharePoint Web Site
• Create a SharePoint that will
serve as a central source for
anyone who wants
information on the project.
• Explain how the organization
will differ as a result.
• State the project benefits.
Provide Status Reports
• Percentage of users on new
system.
• “IP Phone Tip of the Week”
and answers to frequently
asked questions (FAQs)
• General information:
timelines, project scope,
project goals.
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. Source: Cisco “The Road to IP Telephony”, 2004 9

10. Best Practice: Day 2 Handoff and Support Team
The key to a successful handoff as you migrate from PBX to IP Telephony is to have a support
team in place that has been involved on the project from the beginning that is separate from
your team installing the new phone system.
Best practice: Implement an ITIL change management software system and ITIL processes
with three levels of support.
Tier 1 – Help desk with focus on ‘first call’ resolution that takes the initial users call, opens a
support ticket and provides basic support and troubleshooting.
Tier 2 – Consists of multiple skill sets and includes ‘feet on the street’ for break/fix, configuration
issues and repair, and is staffed 24 hours a day.
Tier 3 – The highest level of escalation for VoIP. A hybrid team is best, with a mix of Voice and
Data professionals. Includes the design engineers, and people involved in the original design.
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 10

11. What to Watch Out For
Disconnection and removal
of critical phones that are
unidentified or unassigned
can backfire on your project
team.
Not conducting quality
gates with your voice/data
engineers during the final
two weeks before rollout.
Technical issues related to
the LAN that arise during
the day of installation.
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 11

12. Clean House
Validate the talents on your
team are well versed in all
aspects of your VoIP project
before you begin.
Trace and disconnect all
noncritical lines that are
identified or unassigned.
Understand and make
changes to your operational
security policy.
Put in place a standard
naming convention for
identifying phones on your
network (lobby phones,
break room phones,
emergency phones, etc.)
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 12

13. Thank you!
www.telcosourcing.com +1 (844) 276 0544 (toll-free from the United States)
+1 (720) 379 1612 (outside the United States)
© 2015 Telco Sourcing Advisors, LLC All rights reserved. 13