Teams expert expands converged communications conversations

Symity was founded by unified communications experts who saw the potential of Microsoft Cloud-based solutions to revolutionize the telephony space. After more than 10 years in business, the Symity team is known as a trusted advisor that can address even the most challenging converged communications requirements, including high levels of technical complexity or extreme environmental conditions. Symity’s consultancy practice, offering managed services, adoption, and training for Microsoft Teams Phone, Microsoft Teams Rooms, and Microsoft Teams-certified contact center solutions, is complemented by bespoke solutions like Symity Assist that extend the value of a customer’s Microsoft investments and improve user experiences. Winner of the 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for Converged Communications, Symity is also a FastTrack Ready partner, helping eligible organizations enable Microsoft 365 solutions with expert guidance.

While telephony-centric solutions have been a core focus, over the past two years Symity has seen its team double in size as customer demand for extending Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 security and generative AI solutions has increased. “What’s driving our expansion, both in terms of our customer list and reputation, is the technologies that sit alongside Teams and the contact center, including security, Copilot, and Power Platform,” said Jamie Wheeldon, Chief Architect at Symity. “Every converged communications conversation we have with customers now includes data security and compliance, data discoverability, Copilot, and more, which is a massive opportunity for growth.”

The Law Society offers staff flexibility, improved experiences with Teams

The Law Society is the independent professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, providing guidance and support to 66,000 members. Symity was initially engaged to implement Microsoft Teams Phone to replace The Law Society’s aging, costly PBX system. The move to modernize the telephony infrastructure, along with integrating a third-party Teams-certified contact center solution, allowed the organization to reduce costs and better support business continuity. This resilience proved critical when The Law Society’s historic, grade I-listed building unfortunately fell victim to a major fire in 2020. “The client was relieved that everyone was able to simply log in from home and seamlessly continue to make calls,” said Alex McKnight, Director of Delivery & Services at Symity. Cloud-based telephony became indispensable once again when COVID-19 shut down offices during lockdown. “Teams Phone has given The Law Society the capabilities they need to support a flexible work environment for their employees,” said McKnight. “The team was delighted that they could maintain full business operations during this period.”

After hybrid work became the new norm, The Law Society wanted to ensure equitable experiences for its staff and members regardless of whether they were in the office or working remotely and engaged Symity for an incremental rollout of Teams Rooms to all meeting spaces. This was particularly important given that the organization also rents out rooms in its renowned building to external groups for meetings and events. Working with Symity, the Society was able to upgrade all 16 of its meeting rooms, creating a design for cameras, microphones, and monitors that fits the unique shape and size of the rooms, while also providing Microsoft Outlook-integrated room booking and the simplified meeting join experience known as ”one-touch join.” The Law Society also chose to equip all of its Teams Rooms with the Symity Assist app, which provides QR codes to answer common questions and self-help videos to train users on the solution. “We continue to help The Law Society transform and maintain their meeting room estate and provide the best experience to users,” said McKnight. “As the business evolves, our managed services assess changing needs and help the organization stay up to date on new capabilities within Teams so that they get lasting value out of their investment.”

Broadening customer impact with Copilot and security

Like many of Symity’s customers, The Law Society is now looking into how it can extend its success with Microsoft Teams solutions by enabling Microsoft 365 security capabilities, along with using Microsoft 365 Copilot to boost personal productivity. “We are heavily focused on Copilot and Microsoft 365 security because of the collaboration integration across Teams and the fact that converged communications touches data across the organization, not to mention you have a range of different [personal] and corporate devices involved,” said Wheeldon.

To help customers get started with Copilot and Microsoft 365 security, Symity offers a variety of assessments and workshops to understand where they are and where they should be going. “Getting started on the AI journey in particular can be rocky if you just spin up a trial but don’t understand how the tools work and what scenarios will provide the most value,” said Wheeldon. “Some of the clients that we’ve worked with on early engagement with Microsoft 365 Copilot have realized some phenomenal return on investment (ROI) results – like one client that achieved a 900 percent average increase in office worker productivity. We only see that growing as you look at integrating more line-of-business applications data and agents with Copilot Studio.”

"Every converged communications conversation we have with customers now includes data security and compliance, data discoverability, Copilot, and more, which is a massive opportunity for growth."

—Jamie Wheeldon, Chief Architect, Symity

"We continue to help The Law Society transform and maintain their meeting room estate and provide the best experience to users. As the business evolves, our managed services assess changing needs and help the organization stay up to date on new capabilities within Teams so that they get lasting value out of their investment."

—Alex McKnight, Director of Delivery & Services, Symity

Symity helps The Law Society transform telephony, meetings with Microsoft Teams