Green issues are becoming increasingly important and more
of a focus for all businesses.

Telinet is a Mitel Premier partner, and Mitel is the greenest phone system available in the market place. In this section we provide a brief overview of the different environmental facets of the Mitel phone system.

Reducing waste

Extending the life of equipment is better then re-cycling
Emissions from recycling carbon intensive equipment are not well understood

Mitel Intelligent Migration

The best way of reducing emissions is to build on your existing architecture, rather than complelety replacing it. The Mitel platform allows you to extend the life of your existing PBX, while taking advantage of the IP communications and the benefits it brings.

Mitel 5340 IP Phones power management features:

• When not in use, they automatically enter low-power mode that turns off LCD backlight and uses about 80% less energy than full power
• Reducing Harmful Chemicals in IP Set Design. Reduced levels of Lead, Mercury, Hexavalent Chromium, Cadmium, PBB and PBDE which meet RoHS requirements
• 66% of Each Phone is Completely Recyclable
• Mitel has Reduced Product Packaging

Future ideas for the Mitel phone system

Mitel is continually looking to develop future ideas which will allow users to work more efficiently, saving energy along the way. For example:

• Mapping systems to route engineers efficiently
• Tracking field engineers through mobile device
• Linking to scheduling systems to make sure closest engineer is used to reduce travel times
• Remote access reducing the need to send a field engineer
• Deploy Your Assistant/ Office Communications Server on site for project managers

The Mitel system can significantly reduce your carbon emissions by changing the way your employees work.

Mitel Remote Workers

The employee who commutes 5 days a week:

• Commutes 43.5 miles / week
• Spends 233 hours each year getting to and from work
• Including business travel, travels an additional 1½ times around the globe
• Disperses 8 tons of pollutants each year

Each employee that works from home 1 day per week prevents 834lbs of CO2 from entering the air.

By deploying remote workers, where an IP phone is simply plugged into a broadband connections with no requirements for a VPN, you are able to reduce carbon emissions, and provide flexible working for your staff, which is increasingly being viewed as a key benefit.

Mitel Quick Conference

• Create virtual meeting facilities instantaneously, without the need for expensive third party systems
• Conduct business with colleagues, suppliers and remote staff, regardless of location
• Only need a telephone number, and a conference ID to hold or participate in a conference call

Presence and availability

• Working in the office or working from home, employees need to share ideas and data
• Home workers can feel isolated without regular contact
• Enable your team to work virtually by giving them the tools to do so
• Mitel collaboration portfolio, including Microsoft Office Communications Server improves productivity by enabling immediate access to information and people – right from the desktop
• View employee presence information
• Immediate access to contact information and associated files
• Share files, whiteboard, use secure federated IM chat
• Low-cost video-conferencing
• Launch quick audio conference sessions
• Access and make calls on a PC

Remote supervision of staff

• Key issue is remote supervision of staff working from home
• Your Assistant or Microsoft Office Communications Server can be used as a means to supervise staff working from home thanks to its built-in presence and availability capabilities
• Supervisors can know when staff are logged on
• Secure instant messaging and presence overcomes issues around IM security
• Used in conjunction with Mitel broadband telephony it provides an optimal means to supervise staff who wish to work from home

Home agents and contact centres

• Home agents becoming a mainstream option (Datamonitor)
• 47,000 home-based outsourced call centre workers globally, to rise to 224,000 by 2012.
• Workers tend to be older with more work experience, with higher customer satisfaction and lower attrition
• Healthcare, insurance, technology, tourism and travel sectors embracing home call-centre agent model
• In the UK the AA is a big user of home-working call centre agents, with 300 home-based agents taking calls from motorists and dealing with insurance quotes
• With Mitel contact centre technology, agents can work from home
• Call centre managers can dynamically manage call centre from anywhere
• Connected via IP, staff simply log in to support call centre
• Mitel Teleworking Technology supports ACD, users can support call centre from home
• Recruit from a wider pool of people, including part time staff and staff with disabilities

To find out more about Telinet and Mitel and how to use IP telephony to make your business greener call 0800 082 7001 or we can contact you.

Telinet has a green focus on its work. We started electronically billing our customers mid 2007, reducing the amount of paper we generate within the business. We sell the greenest phone system available – the Mitel 3300. It has the lowest power requirements out of all of the systems.

One of the greatest growing areas of our business is remote workers. At Telinet we practice what we preach, with a quarter of our employees having home working functionality. This provides them with a greater level of work-life balance, and for each employee who works from home one day a week it prevents 834lbs of CO2 from entering the air.

With a recycling policy in house for our day to day waste, we also work closely with manufacturers to make sure all old technology is disposed off in an eco friendly and WEEE compliant manner. In addition with many of our customers we work with their existing equipment to maximise the lifespan of systems and reduce the quantity of new equipment required.

We are continually looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint even more and will be making further developments on this in 2008.

Matthew Lambert, Telinet Sales & Marketing Director.