Managing Information Technology

CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler University

Director,

Netwk &

Sys

Telecom

Coordinator

CIO

Butler participants Outside participants

Facilities

Mgmt Telecom

Tech

Network

Engineer

Telecom Evaluation Team

Dietrich

Lockard

Group

Berbee

User

Advisory

Group

CFO

Server

Admin Systems

Support

CISCO

SBC

User Dept.

Coordinators

Student

Techs

Help Desk

Time Warner

Telecom

PeopleSoft

developer PR Comm.

Specialist

EXHIBIT 2 Project Participants at Cutover, July 2005

from Admission, Finance, Student Life, Facilities
Management, the libraries, and faculty. In June 2004 the IR
Telephony Evaluation Team, a Dietrich Lockard Group
consultant, and most of the User Advisory Group went to
Chicago to attend the SUPERCOMM telephony confer-
ence. SUPERCOMM hosted leading-edge technology
forums and exhibits and allowed the Butler staff to get a
jump-start on industry trends. The team was able to “win-
dow shop” to get a feel for what products were available
and to help devise an appropriate solution for enhancing
telecommunications on the Butler campus. The trip also
allowed the User Advisory Group and technical staff to
become more acquainted and begin to work as a team. The
Butler participants began to feel more comfortable with the
possibility of acquiring a PBX and implementing newer
VoIP technology as they learned about ways to address
some of the risks.
After returning to campus, Dietrich Lockard Group
consultants conducted surveys, interviews, and focus

groups with staff, faculty, and students. The team found that

many administrative users were displeased with the out-

dated Centrex and Centigram capabilities, although they

lauded the communication system’s high reliability. For

example, all the offices with heavy call volumes had only

basic calling trees to help route calls and lacked manage-

ment reporting; the analog phones could only handle one

call at a time. Moves, additions, and changes to current

phones required a technician to physically visit each phone.

Like many other universities, Butler also lacked any means

to communicate to the entire campus if time-sensitive

emergency information needed to be disseminated.

The student surveys revealed that nearly 92 percent

of students residing on campus had a cellular phone, but

virtually the same number of students used their regular

room phone as well. While almost two-thirds of the

students preferred cell phones, one-third still preferred a

regular telephone. Moreover, 73 percent of the students

indicated that their campus-provided voice mail was