The Recording Academy

Celebrating music for more than 50 years, The Recording Academy not only recognizes achievements in the recording arts and sciences with the world-famous GRAMMY Awards, but the organization also supports the music community with health and human services and music education programs through its MusiCares, and GRAMMY Foundations. The Santa Monica-based nonprofit has about 200 employees, a fourth of which are spread out across offices in 12 Chapter cities.

“We would get more features — and the specific features we wanted — with ShoreTel, and the audio quality was second to none. That’s a really important benefit with so many fine-tuned ears in our business.”
— Rick Engdahl, Vice President of IT, The Recording Academy.

A move to a new building presented an ideal opportunity for The Recording Academy to upgrade to a feature-rich, flexible and cost-effective IP communication system. With an IT support staff of only five, priority was placed on finding a system that could be quickly and cost-effectively deployed, and which would integrate with LifeSize, a high-definition video conferencing solution that The Recording Academy uses to meet its very specific business needs. Other must-haves included an overall low total cost of ownership (TCO), and a resilient architecture that would ensure system reliability.

“ShoreTel is customer-focused. They actively include customers in their product and feature planning, and release cycles are much shorter. One feature we needed was included in a release a month after we installed our system.”
— Rick Engdahl, Vice President of IT, The Recording Academy.

In March 2009, The Recording Academy moved into its new building, only five weeks after the GRAMMY Awards presentation, leaving the old phone system behind, and installing ShoreTel in the new one consisting of 200 ShoreTel IP 265 color phones, two ShoreTel 220 T1, two model 90 and one model 24A voice switches. In addition to delivering increased functionality for users with nearly every call, ShoreTel also streamlines ticket order processing. Instead of relying on faxed ticket orders printed out at the Staples Center, ticket orders are routed from the fax server to the ShoreTel system. This eliminates tedious paperwork while offering The Recording Academy staff immediate visibility into incoming orders. Other benefits include:

• The delay and cost of separate phone system wiring is eliminated when moving into a new building.
• Superior sound quality meets The Recording Academy’s high standards for audio and video conferencing environments.
• ShoreTel’s cost-effectiveness more than compensated for the fact that there was no budget for a new phone system.
• ShoreTel’s high reliability and system mobility supports The Recording Academy’s off-site GRAMMY Awards and other event needs.

“We can make routine updates — moves, adds and changes — quickly in house. To make changes to our previous system, we always had to have a technician come out.”
— Rick Engdahl, Vice President of IT, The Recording Academy.