Miller Johnson Steichen Kinnard, Inc

Communications are everything to Miller Johnson Steichen Kinnard, Inc., (MJSK) a full-service boutique investment firm based in Minneapolis, MN. MJSK maintained its profitability over the years by focusing on relationships and facilitating contact and information flow to and from clients and among employees. The firm now has 200 employees across 10 offices in three states.

“All our business is done on the phone. Clients aren’t allowed to place trading orders to brokers via email."
- Matthew Hoban, Vice President and Director of Information Technology, MJSK.

The high end of the investment market remains a very voice-intensive business. Disruption in service is not an option. When the IT team learned that it would cost $200,000 to replicate the firm’s existing Meridian PBX on a transitional staging network when the firm moved to new headquarters in 2003, the decision to find a new system made itself. Specifically, the firm sought an IP phone system that offered streamlined administration, increased productivity, voice-enabled applications, and ease of deployment.

“ShoreTel and its local reseller, Data Accessories, were very responsive and gave us fantastic support. Our business is all about people and relationships. Money is secondary — although ShoreTel costs a lot less, too.”
- Matthew Hoban, Vice President and Director of Information Technology, MJSK.

Following a trial period, during which the firm purchased a ShoreTel system to use for the staging platform and new office, the decision was made to roll it out to the major branch offices. The corporate VPN has certificate-based security, and the continual, centralized distribution of up-to-the-minute market information keeps the data WAN connecting all the offices very busy. The WAN connections for MJSK’s three metropolitan offices have point-to-point T-1 links, and smaller branches have Frame Relay PVCs with rates of up to 750Kbps, depending on their size. Two three-person offices in North Dakota each have 512Kbps PVCs that are terminated on the same host port in Minneapolis. Other benefits include:

• Toll-bypass eliminated a lot of long-distance charges, and branch-office trunk requirements were reduced. 
• With a single distributed system across multiple sites, some trunking can be aggregated in Minneapolis to take advantage of better rates.
• Seamless integrations with the firm’s mission-critical IPC Turret trading system to facilitate intra-office communication. MJSK traders can use their Turret desktop devices to talk to one another extension to extension.
• The system’s ability to mesh with legacy systems means those employees who don’t want to use the computer interface may use their new IP phones just like the old Meridian handsets.
• Ability to manage communications using their ShoreTel desk phone, computer, mobile phone, or home telephone is a huge productivity booster for employees who travel around the country doing due diligence for MJSK’s underwriting business.

“ShoreTel was the only system with the tools to accommodate such a wide variety of users.”
- Matthew Hoban, Vice President and Director of Information Technology, MJSK.