Collaboration Solutions from Bell provide Canadian businesses with a competitive edge

Integrated IP applications increase productivity, maximize cost savings for today's connected enterprise

TORONTO, Ontario, Oct. 9, 2007 – Bell Canada strengthened its position as the leading convergence integrator and business solutions provider today, unveiling a comprehensive suite of Collaboration Solutions designed to enable more effective real-time communication across corporate environments, anywhere, anytime and through any device.

    Collaboration Solutions from Bell provide advanced communication capabilities for Canadian businesses faced with the growing demands of changing market dynamics such as globalization and distributed and mobile workforces. Through Bell unified communication solutions, organizations can connect to the people and information they need quickly and efficiently.

    "More than ever, businesses are finding that effective collaboration is critical in creating value and competing in today's market," said Stéphane Boisvert, President, Bell Enterprise Group. "We found that ourselves, and we used our own experience with tools such as Enterprise messaging and team workspaces to develop this comprehensive suite. With these unified capabilities, Canadian companies will be able to improve real-time interaction among employees, with partners, across the supply chain and with clients."

    Simplify management and reduce costs

    A report by Forrester Research describes the current usage of collaboration tools at the enterprise level. "By taking an enterprise-wide approach to collaboration, organizations can reduce costs, improve a range of processes with the same infrastructure, enable contextual collaboration (which increases worker and organizational productivity), and lay the groundwork for Information Workplaces," wrote Erica Driver, Principal Analyst (Topic Overview: Collaboration Platforms, Forrester Research, Inc., March 2007).

    Collaboration Solutions from Bell - in addition to providing customers with the ability to integrate voice and data with desktop applications - enable companies to simplify the management of their communications infrastructure and leverage their existing investments for future IP-based innovation.

    Through click-to-call convenience, application integration, presence and scheduling information, and rich content sharing, users are able to collaborate more effectively, reduce costs and improve overall efficiency, productivity, customer and supplier loyalty and employee satisfaction.

    Practice What We Preach

    To better understand how to transform communications across an enterprise, Bell adopted collaboration solutions throughout its own organization. For example, Bell employees conduct close to 300,000 conferences a year using Bell Conferencing Solutions, while more than 20,000 are equipped to work remotely using Telework solutions.

    "We leverage 13 world-class innovation centres across Canada to develop and prototype next-generation communication solutions," said Gilmond Lapointe, Regional Vice-President, Professional Services, Bell Enterprise Group.

    "To make the transformation to a highly effective collaborative organization, a company must understand its current situation and set goals, then map out a path to get where they want to go," he said. "As the leading convergence integrator in Canada, Bell is committed to help businesses get
there by building a truly rich communication ecosystem."

    Solution Snapshot

    Collaboration Solutions from Bell include:
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    - Converged Office - Integrate business-grade telephony with desktop applications
    - Virtual Meeting - Connect, meet and share without leaving your desk
    - Unified Communications (UC) Readiness Assessment - Plan for a successful deployment
    - Discover Workshop - Scope the project at the beginning, not at the end
    - Network Assessment - Build a strong foundation for UC
    - Voice over IP Readiness Assessment - Develop a robust base for VoIP migration
    - Productivity Check - Take the pulse of the collaborative environment
    - ROI Analysis - Create a bulletproof business case for the project
    >>
 

About Bell

Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers with solutions to all their communications needs, including telephone services, wireless communications, high-speed Internet, digital television and voice over IP. Bell also offers integrated information and communications technology (ICT) services to businesses and governments, and is the Virtual Chief Information Officer (VCIO) to small and medium businesses (SMBs). Bell is proud to be a Premier National Partner and the exclusive Communications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. For information on Bell's products and services, please visit www.bell.ca. For corporate information on BCE, please visit www.bce.ca.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Jacques Bouchard
Bell Media Relations
514 391-2007
1 877 391-2007
jacques.bouchard1@bell.ca