Sydney, Australia – Nov. 25, 2014 – ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple phone systems andunified communications (UC) solutions for the cloud and premises, today announced that iconic cinema business HOYTS Group has implemented a ShoreTel Unified Communications (UC) and Enterprise Contact Center (ECC) solution across 50 sites in Australia and New Zealand for over 2300 staff.

Since the completion of the project, HOYTS has achieved a return on investment (ROI) within nine months, and has calculated annual savings of more than AU$300,000 from its new ShoreTel UC infrastructure.

The three phase deployment began with the implementation of a ShoreTel UC and ECC solution as part of HOYTS’ Sydney head office relocation. This deployment was extended to its head office in New Zealand after HOYTS’ acquisition of the Berkley Cinema Group. HOYTS began the rollout to its Australian and New Zealand cinemas over a six month period, as the company’s existing PABX maintenance contracts in each location reached their expiry dates.

According to Adam Wrightson, General Manager, HOYTS Cinema Technology Group, HOYTS was looking for an IP telephony solution that provided the company with the modularity and high scalability to meet both the needs of its centralised head office function and also HOYTS’ increasingly diversified and geographically disparate business. Additionally, HOYTS needed an easy to use, robust system providing increased efficiency at the lowest total cost of ownership.

“We evaluated all of the key players in the space, including hosted, hardware and software-based IP telephony options, and ShoreTel was the clear winner. Its functionality, ease of use, ease of management, modularity and scalability was compelling. Even more compelling was the unified communications feature set we could unlock in the future without significant additional cost or effort,” said Wrightson.

“HOYTS’ use of ShoreTel’s technology platform shows how you can take advantage of the simplicity of our architecture for reliability and scalability, and also use the flexibility of the environment to deliver real innovation and also significant cost savings,” said Jamie Romanin, managing director, Australia and New Zealand, ShoreTel.

In addition to ShoreTel providing all voice communications, HOYTS is currently using ShoreTel ECC for its inbound customer service operations, across both its core cinema business, and also for HOYTS Kiosk, self-service DVD rental kiosks which are currently in over 600 locations across Australia. HOYTS operates a distributed contact centre operation with customer service agents in head office, at its cinemas and at home.

ShoreTel’s contact centre platform is also supporting HOYTS Cinema Technology Group (CTG). HOYTS CTG provides both internal support for digital cinema technology and traditional IT, as well as outsourced services to exhibitors and other companies across ANZ requiring support for digital cinema and related technologies.

The ShoreTel solution was designed by PTS Communications, a Sydney-based ShoreTel partner. The deployment was undertaken by PTS in Australia with ShoreTel certified systems integrator Business Technology Group (BTG) completing the rollout in New Zealand.

In the future, HOYTS plans to extend the collaborative capabilities of its ShoreTel technology, and to take advantage of new products as they are released.

“With a diversified business, there is always a potential risk that communications could become increasingly disconnected. However, with ShoreTel, we have a truly unified communications infrastructure, that will continue to provide us with our communications needs and collaborative capabilities into the future,” said Wrightson.

“The modularity and flexibility of the ShoreTel platform enables us to continue to diversify our operations with the comfort of knowing that our communications will not just keep pace with business change, but will actively support it.”