ShoreTel Solutions Provide Strong Communications Foundation for Construction Customers

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple unified communications platforms including business phone systems, applications and mobile UC solutions, continues to provide solutions that enable construction firms to improve site-to-site employee communication, increase productivity and reduce costs.

ShoreTel's brilliantly simple solutions have been built from the ground-up to defeat complexity and instead focus on overall ease of use, freeing customers to concentrate on the work at hand while driving down the total cost of ownership.

The McGraw-Hill 2013 Construction Forecast predicts that total U.S. construction starts for 2013 will rise 6 percent to $483.7 billion, and the US Commerce Department recently reported that spending on residential housing rose in May to the highest level in 4 1/2 years. With this in mind, ShoreTel is ensuring that customers in the construction industry have the right unified communications (UC) tools to meet demand.

"Today's growing construction industry is more competitive than ever, and ShoreTel UC solutions are helping our customers keep pace, with offerings that are simple to manage, easy to deploy to multiple locations, and that result in fast return on investment," said David Petts, senior VP of worldwide sales for ShoreTel.

"Prior to implementing ShoreTel, we had 15 locations with 15 different phone systems. None of these systems worked together and calling another location was expensive because of long distance charges," said Bruce L. Fyfe, Jr., IT director at Lakeside Industries. "ShoreTel allowed us to converge all of our offices on one unified platform that utilized our existing WAN, resulting in significant cost savings. We saw a ROI on our initial hardware/deployment costs in less than two years. And the use of ShoreTel Communicator has dramatically improved employee communications."

Here's what other leading construction customers have to say about ShoreTel solutions:

• "We had an old, unsupported VoIP system that needed to be upgraded or replaced. It was more cost effective to purchase ShoreTel than it was to upgrade our existing system. One of the biggest benefits we've seen is the ability to manage the system in-house, which has saved us thousands of dollars a month on third-party services. In addition, we have started installing phones at some of our remote jobsites that are connected via VPN across the Internet which has helped save installation time and resulted in cost savings." – George Hubert, employee owner, Sundt Construction, Inc.
• "We were challenged with finding a replacement for our aging phone system. We chose ShoreTel for expandability, reliability, ease of use, and value; plus ShoreTel's reputation. The site-to-site calling capability of the system has reduced the number of toll calls placed between the locations and the built-in productivity tools such as Communicator allow our employees to use the phone system as a strategic business tool. Specifically, the 'assign phone' and 'find me' features have reduced the number of missed calls, voice mails, return calls and cellular minutes." – Stanley Borowski, IT manager, J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, Inc.
• "Our objectives when shopping for a new telephony system were to improve efficiency and administration of the system and improve productivity through collaboration and information sharing. We also wanted to reduce costs and instill a sense of belonging within Emeco, which is a global company. ShoreTel's impact on personal productivity and efficiency has been a major benefit as has been the improvement in the administration and management of the whole telephony system. ShoreTel has made everyone's job easier." – Alan Doyle, IT Manager, Emeco HoldingsLimited
• "The ease of management of the overall phone infrastructure is one thing that stands out about the ShoreTel system. Having one login and one graphical interface to view network operations is a great benefit. This makes it fast and easy to implement a new site and provides added flexibility. In addition, the ability for our staff to quickly communicate with other staff members is important to our business because we're spread over many sites. " – Mike Saunders, director of IT, Van Metre Companies

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About ShoreTel
ShoreTel, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHOR) is a provider of business communication solutions whose brilliantly simple unified communications platforms, applications and mobile UC solutions promise a new rhythm of workforce engagement and collaboration. With costly complexity eliminated by design from its award-winning, all-in-one IP phone system, UC and contact center solution, and its industry-leading hosted phone system, workers enjoy a freedom and self-reliance that other providers can't match. Users have full control to engage and collaborate, no matter the time, place or device, for the lowest cost and demand on IT resources in the industry. ShoreTel is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has regional offices and partners worldwide. For more information, visit shoretel.com or shoretelsky.com.

CONTACT: Katie Maller, 1-408-962-2786, [email protected]

SOURCE ShoreTel