NEC Delivers Collaboration, Mobility to The Chazen Cos.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- The Chazen Cos., a provider of environmental, structural, landscaping, transportation, and land development services to government and private-sector clients throughout New York, recently implemented a new communications infrastructure from NEC. The NEC solutions support improved voice features, video conferencing capabilities, and intra-office collaboration for Chazen’s more than 150 employees operating from offices in Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Troy, and Glens Falls.

NEC's customized hybrid IP/TDM platform and services model transformed Chazen's four independent communications systems onto a single, scalable network. The system has markedly increased employee efficiency, reduced long-distance charges between offices with four-digit dialing, and has allowed the flexibility of office-to-office mobility. Without the NEC solution, the disconnected systems forced Chazen to incur costly long-distance charges for office-to-office calls, and hampered its efforts to pursue or accommodate the company's growth.

"Our collaboration with NEC has delivered true business value to Chazen," said Gary Aber, director of utility design and inspection at Chazen. "The tangible results of NEC's customized communications system clearly addressed the unique demands of our organization. NEC's hybrid IP solution has created a more productive office experience where employees can work seamlessly and efficiently to serve our customers and grow our business. NEC technology is the engine behind our aggressive growth model."

Chazen implemented NEC's UNIVERGE NEAX 2000 IPS solution in its Poughkeepsie headquarters to provide employees with the flexibility of pure hybrid IP and TDM capabilities. Executives frequently traveling between offices are able to leverage IP functionality to quickly forward extensions, voicemail and other information for uninterrupted access. Employees not requiring these capabilities are provided with traditional TDM service to assist in cost management. Enhanced video conferencing has also reduced cost by limiting the amount of travel required between branch offices. NEC's solution provides a stable, reliable communications system for daily employee video collaboration.

NEC's OpenWorx BAS Attendant Console assists Chazen's attendants in providing customers with a seamless, unified company experience. The BAS provides callers with a pre-determined menu of options allowing attendants to quickly identify callers' desired points of contact using advanced directory filtering and search features. Chazen has also implemented NEC's NEAX IPS Distributed Model Remote (DMR) in its Glens Falls office and Physical Interface Modules (PIMs) in its Troy and Newburgh offices.

"Our ability to provide customized and flexible solutions to meet unique business demands of our customers is a strength and primary objective for NEC," said Paul Lopez, general manager, Marketing and Services at NEC Unified Solutions.