Cloud-based Teams calling gives MICT SETA a platform for unified communications and collaboration

Summary

MICT SETA is a South African public sector organization that focuses on developing skills in five interrelated subsectors that together employ over two million people across more than 30,000 companies. When this SETA’s legacy telephony system reached the end of its lifecycle, they decided to move their voice communications to Teams. We migrated their users and will provide and manage their infrastructure and services for three years.

Reliable voice telecommunications for better availability and teamwork

The Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA) accelerates quality skills training to help create an information-savvy South Africa.

With six offices spread across the country, they needed their people to be able to collaborate with each other as well as their external partners to deliver the maximum value to their stakeholders, audit the training being provided, accelerate the development of scare skills and provide excellent customer service.

When their telephony system and infrastructure neared the end of its lifecycle, they were ready to upgrade their telecommunications experience. They knew they needed a services partner with the right skillsets to design a secured and highly available solution and manage it for them.

“The telephony system was one of our priority projects. We needed a telephony system that wouldn’t only work in the office but would be reliable wherever you are as long as you can connect to Microsoft Teams,” says Moloti Nkune, MICT SETA CIO.

Following an in-depth evaluation process, they selected us as their partner to ensure the process of moving to a new platform proceeded smoothly.

Keeping connections strong with Teams

MICT SETA already used Microsoft 365 and wanted their new telephony system to integrate with their other applications. They selected Microsoft Teams as it is cloud-based, which allowed them to deliver services without needing to invest in expensive infrastructure.

They’d already tested Teams as a collaboration tool but wanted to move all their users to a unified system providing collaboration and calling functionality. Having one system for all employees would make it easier to manage licenses and maintain the system.

We created a blueprint for the full implantation of all the relevant components enabling their team members to make calls as easily as sending an instant message to a colleague.

Seamlessly integrating all the elements meant that employees could continue to collaborate while our team dealt with the complexities of porting numbers and migrating their phone system.

With six offices across the country, we moved their more than 140 users in six months (this time includes the procurement process that can take up to four months) and provided the necessary training on the new solution.

Ongoing maintenance and support ensure a quality service

Leveraging our communications lifecycle management service, we’re constantly evaluating usage on the system, providing them with insight into how they could optimize their communications investments. This gives MICT SETA insight into user adoption of Teams and lets them know ahead of time if they need to build out capacity.

Alongside these services we provide MICT SETA with a full support desk to ensure that any issues are quickly addressed

Managed telephone services for improved service delivery

Moving to Teams has allowed MICT SETA to worry less about their telephony system being available and focus more connecting with their partners. This brings them closer to reaching their core purpose of fostering scarce skills and bridging South Africa’s digital divide.

Scalable to allow for future growth

MICT SETA has six offices across the country. The flexibility offered by Teams allows them to quickly scale the solution should demand require it.

Reducing in-house maintenance

Leveraging our support services free’s up their IT team to focus on their tasks, rather than on managing a telephony system.

Enabling reliable hybrid working

Using Teams for voice calls allows MICT SETA’s people to work from wherever they are. As long as they’re connected to the internet, they can make and receive voice calls on any device, no matter what challenges their working environment throws at them.