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    How the Writer's Guild of America Penned a Stronger Microsoft Teams Contract

    For years, the WGA kept its members connected with a legacy Avaya system. When the system began to show its age, the WGA looked to upgrade it. Unfortunately, upgrading the system wouldn’t be as easy as they had hoped.  

    Continuant had partnered with the WGA to offer maintenance for its legacy Avaya system. When the need to upgrade arose, Continuant offered to deploy the upgrade for the Guild to reduce cost and downtime. The Guild received a fully upgraded system and a new AVST (Applied Voice & Speech Technologies) voice messaging system. Continuant also assisted in rebuilding the Guild’s corporate office, tackling its Network, Data Center, and Telecom structured cabling infrastructure. 

    In more recent years, the Covid pandemic made the WGA realize that it couldn’t put off its migration to the cloud any longer. The Guild needed to be able to better accommodate remote workers, who make up more than half its total employees.  

    In the end, the Guild chose to deploy a new Zoom solution, but this wasn't the end of its partnership with Continuant. Continuant stayed on to support its legacy systems through the migration, providing PSTN carrier services.

    Finally, Continuant and the Guild worked together to deploy an omnichannel contact center from Five9. 

    With Continuant and Five9 the WGA now has a future-proofed means of keeping all of its users connected. When the time comes for the Guild to act on its members' behalf, it can do so more conveniently, and well-organized, than ever before. 

    Academy Award winning movies and quality television require talented actors, directors with a vision and, most importantly, good writers. Founded in 1912 under the name Author’s Guild (AG), the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) has since expanded to support authors, dramatists, and screenwriters across the United States. It aims to help these writers negotiate fair contracts with big studios and has organized at least 6 major strike actions. 

    The Challenge: 

    • Outdated legacy Avaya solution 
    • Large remote workforce in need of remote collaboration 

    The Solution: 

    • Avaya system upgrade 
    • New AVST messaging system 
    • Five9 omni-channel contact center 

    The work that WGA does requires a strong communication network. When it came time to move that network to the cloud, the Guild needed a partner just as organized as they were. 

     

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