Fujitsu and Cisco Create Unified Communications Environment for JGC

Fujitsu and Cisco today announced that they have created a large-scale unified communications⁽¹⁾ environment for JGC Corporation. Designed to provide a more robust communications platform for JGC, the new environment will utilize 5,400 Cisco IP telephones.

In 2009, Fujitsu and Cisco formed a strategic alliance to work together on unified communications. Through this alliance, they have developed solutions, delivered services, and conducted joint promotions for the market in Japan. Leveraging Fujitsu's wealth of solutions and proven track record in system configuration with the global standard meeting solutions of Cisco, the strengths of both companies aligned with JGC's plans for global expansion thus leading to the recent collaboration.

JGC is developing many energy plant construction projects, primarily in the hydrocarbon areas of petroleum, natural gas, and petrochemicals, in Japan as well as in other parts of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Although centrally working from the company's headquarters in Yokohama City, located next to Tokyo, project participants were also carrying out their activities globally from engineering sites around the world. To enhance internal and external communications between all parties involved, including customers, vendors, as well as subcontractors, and enable project operations to run more efficiently, JGC decided on the installation of a unified communications platform based on IP telephony.

Fujitsu and Cisco first deployed a unified communications environment at JGC's headquarters, assigning IP phone numbers to each of the approximately 4,000 executives, employees, and contractors. This enabled each project participant to take phone calls and access their voicemail directly from wherever they were in terms of location thus making communications more efficient. At the same time, costs and extra work stemming from setting up phones and rewiring extensions, due to office layouts being changed to accommodate project development, could be significantly reduced.

One of the problems that JGC had encountered during project operations was that phone conversations and voice messages frequently resulted in miscommunications and interfered with individual productivity. Furthermore, as office layouts would sometimes change as a project developed, it was important for the company to be able to rewire extensions and set up phones quickly, easily, and inexpensively.

JGC's new communications environment is based on Cisco's unified communications, including Cisco Unified Communications Manager⁽²⁾ and Cisco Unified IP Phone⁽³⁾, and was built by Fujitsu using a migration solution based upon Fujitsu's IP-PBX system, IP Pathfinder. This allows the new system to work with JGC's existing communications assets, including the PHS phones used at their headquarters as well as the PBXs at their other offices, to enable transition to unified communications in stages.

JGC plans to continue deploying the unified communications environment in stages to MM Park Building, as well as its research sites such as the Oarai Research Establishment, and overseas engineering and construction sites.

Fujitsu and Cisco look forward to further revolutionizing work operations at JGC and supporting the company's continued expansion through enhanced efficiency.