An Appia Case Study

ProLiance Energy is a leading supplier of natural gas. More than 100 ProLiance Energy professionals serve a wide range of customers in 18 states from their Indianapolis headquarters and from sales offices in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Tennessee.

Business Challenge

Appia’s relationship with ProLiance Energy began when ProLiance wanted to test IP communications in their IT environment. At the time, they were using PBX systems at their corporate office and their remote sites. ProLiance’s IT staff wanted to deploy a Cisco IP communications platform that would interface its 120 phones with IP phones. ProLiance selected Appia to design and deploy the system.

The Appia Solution

Appia engineers deployed a Cisco Integrated Access Device (IAD) at ProLiance corporate headquarters, which allowed them to interface an Appia IP voice solution with their existing PBX. This provided ProLiance staff with a full-featured IP voice solution running on a Cisco CallManager.

Over the next 12 months, Appia completed the migration of ProLiance’s two remote offices to an Appia hosted voice solution, maintaining the interface to the PBX at corporate headquarters. The IP solution enabled ProLiance to enjoy a significant reduction in telecom costs by eliminating charges for interoffice calling. The scalability of the IP telephony system also permitted ProLiance to deploy the technology on a timeline that fit their requirements and budget.

A New Challenge

The system was functioning perfectly until Appia received a call from Andrew Payne, ProLiance’s IT director, informing Appia that ProLiance’s legacy voicemail system had just crashed. He asked if Appia could replace all of the remaining legacy hardware with an Appia hosted solution before the beginning of the next week.

Appia’s engineering staff decided that it was a challenge they were willing to accept. Appia immediately submitted a bid for the project while ProLiance sent a bid request to the large legacy supplier from whom they had purchased their PBX system.

On Thursday, Appia’s bid was accepted and Appia engineers immediately began working with Payne to design the solution, order the necessary hardware, and plan an installation schedule that would cause little or no disruption to business operations.

On Friday afternoon, Appia began installing a new voicemail system and IP phone services. The new system was up and running on all 120 phones prior to the start of business on Monday morning. (The bid did not arrive from the PBX supplier until Monday afternoon.)

The Results

Appia’s solution has helped ProLiance reduce costs and improve productivity. Most importantly, the Appia system has virtually eliminated concerns about reliability. Payne writes, "Let me just start by saying WOW! I made the call [to Appia] last Tuesday to ask if we could change out all our phones and have the system up and running over the weekend. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would become reality. It was amazing the way everything came together. ProLiance could not be happier with the end result."