Unify Names Municipality of Maastricht as a "New Way to Work Global Ambassador"

BOCA RATON, Fla., Dec. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Unify, a leading communications software and services firm, today announced the Municipality of Maastricht, the Netherlands, as a New Way to Work Global Ambassador.  Due to its leadership in flexible work, Maastricht municipality employees have enhanced citizens' accessibility to municipal services and communication by 20 percent with the mobile communication capabilities and virtual conferencing capabilities of Unify's enterprise solutions. Unify's New Way to Work (NW2W) Ambassador program honors leaders who have recognized the impact of global work trends on today's business, have prioritized new strategies for communications and collaboration and are successfully navigating the changing technology business landscape to embrace the New Way to Work (#NW2W).

Maastricht, the capital of the province of Limburg, is located in the country's far south with a population of over 121,000. The combined population of Maastricht and neighboring municipalities Eijsden-Margraten, Gulpen-Wittem, Valkenburg and Meerssen, is nearly 200,000.

When the Maastricht council administrative offices moved to a new office complex, the municipality deployed a mobile solution to provide a flexible office concept in which most employees can work anywhere they wish. The municipality implemented Unify's OpenScape Voice solution and OpenScape UC Application for quicker, more efficient collaboration. OpenScape Contact Center Enterprise enhances responsiveness and assures efficient routing of calls to the right person. OpenScape Mobile makes essential functionalities available on mobile devices, and OpenScape Xpressions is used for messaging.

"Citizens want to speak with someone who knows the answers, rather than be transferred from one person to another," said Enno Soeren, director of the shared services center, Municipality of Maastricht. "It's important for our customer contact center to provide a good interface between Maastricht's citizens and their government. The Unify Contact Center solution directs the call to the appropriate customer service expert, while the OpenScape UC with Contact Center Enterprise solution optimizes communication."

Kyra Fens, Telephony & UC project manager with Municipality of Maastricht, said, "Maastricht has a flexible work concept, which means employees within the city can work anywhere. With the Unify solution, we can log in on a desktop device and then bring our communications with us on our mobile device. We're available wherever we are and via our single published phone number."

Unify's pay-as-you-go licensing plan reduces costs and increases flexible responsiveness to changing circumstances. If the number of employees increases or decreases, the municipalities can simply add or remove users. The scalability and collaboration capabilities of the OpenScape Voice platform were of particular interest to the municipality—the current hardware can manage up to 125,000 subscribers. Today, Maastricht has approximately 3,500 subscribers that seek to collaborate with other municipalities.

"As Engaged Cities around the world become more and more prevalent, governments, like the Municipality of Maastricht, showcase the betterment of public service by implementing effective communications systems," said Bill Hurley, chief marketing officer of Unify. "Optimized workflows and streamlined call centers allow governments to keep efforts citizen or people-centric, a focus of the New Way to Work.

Empowered by the Unify Partner Program, Unify's Dutch partner Zetacom managed the implementation for Maastricht.

"The New Way to Work is a global movement," continued Bill Hurley, chief marketing officer at Unify. "With collaboration at the center of everything we do, our partnership with Zetacom ensures quick, direct communication, an top-notch customer service. "If a challenge or question popped up, Zetacom immediately shifted gears to address the product that to the Municipality of Maastricht depends on as the infrastructure of its day-to-day communications."

Dick Dompeling, managing director at Zetacom said, "Since the beginning, we worked closely with Unify for SME and the corporate market. The Municipality of Maastricht is a complex environment with different interests. Our partnership with Unify, especially the OpenScape Voice platform, confirms our intensive cooperation, which allows us to serve our customers even better."

As public sector leaders such as Municipality of Maastricht continue to prioritize new strategies for communications, collaboration, and IT infrastructure, Unify is committed to honoring companies and individuals who are championing the New Way to Work.

For more information about the New Way to Work Global Ambassador Program, visit the NW2W hub at www.unify.com/nw2w.

About Unify
Unify is one of the world's leading communications software and services firms, providing integrated communications solutions for approximately 75 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Our solutions, including Circuit, unify multiple networks, devices and applications into one easy-to-use platform that allows teams to engage in rich and meaningful conversations. The result is a transformation of how the enterprise communicates and collaborates that amplifies collective effort, energizes the business, and enhances business performance. Unify has a strong heritage of product reliability, innovation, open standards and security.

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SOURCE Unify