Tuesday, 4 December 2007

Industrial Bank of Korea Inks USD 1.5 Mill Deal with Datacraft

The Industrial Bank of Korea (BK) has agreed to a USD 1.5 million contract with Datacraft that will see the IT solutions and services provider design and implement a Korea-wide Internet Protocol (IP) network connecting its headquarters and IT centre in Seoul with five regional offices and 550 branches throughout the country.

Scheduled to go live in June 2008, the new network will act as a platform for the bank’s unified communications strategy that will use powerful collaboration and multimedia tools to bring a new level of efficiency and service excellence to IBK’s business.

"Every business faces constant challenges to provide high network availability and good service levels while at the same time, controlling costs. This is even more pertinent in the intense banking industry,” said Seok Il Cho, Country Manager of Datacraft Korea.

The project will incorporate the latest voice gateway technology from Cisco for high-performance, high-density and feature rich voice communications. Two voice gateways will be installed at both IBK’s headquarters and the IT centre, while two other voice gateways will be placed in each of the bank’s five regional centres.

Expected benefits include: improved communications and higher productivity due to flexible, reliable and secure connectivity for office-based workers using IP-based cordless phones; and faster, easier network access for the company’s mobile sales force.