The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Takes its Plug-and-Play Mobile Office Anywhere, thanks to the Cloud

A Home Court Advantage – Even on the Road

In March 2018, thousands of basketball fans will flock to San Antonio to see a new college champion crowned. While the “madness” takes place in the Alamodome, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) holds its annual convention in conjunction with the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament.

The event, the biggest of the year for the NABC, brings together approximately 3,000 coaches for professional development, networking, a vendor expo, and of course, a chance to see the best-of-the-best in college basketball vie for the national title.

To pull off the event smoothly, Kansas City-based NABC must take its show on the road each year, setting up a mobile office at the convention center.

“We bring our entire office and staff onsite for two weeks,” says Stephanie Whitcher, CFO, NABC. “Executing a seamless event depends on having all the same capabilities as our home office.”

A Plug-and-Play Mobile Command Center

For six consecutive years, the NABC has teamed with Allegiant USA and Avaya for its Mobile Command Center to run on the Powered by Avaya IP OfficeTM cloud platform. From the convention center to the hotel, team members communicate via secure telephony, messaging, conferencing, video, and unified communications—helping them coordinate the many logistics of an event of this scale.

“Avaya offers a complete feature set to meet NABC’s collaboration needs, from connecting its disparate team on a day-to-day basis to keeping the team in constant contact during the convention,” says Bryan Dancer, President & CEO of Allegiant.

This year, NABC’s on-the-go office is even more flexible. With its entire infrastructure hosted in the cloud  in Allegiant’s data center, the association has seamless integration between premises-based and cloud delivered services. In effect, NABC has a home court advantage, even on the road.

“Our annual convention, in conjunction with the NCAA Men’s Final Four, is our marquee event every year,”Whitcher says. “The ability to move our office communications anywhere allows us to hit the ground running when we arrive on site.”

In addition to IP Office, the team relies on Avaya one-X® Communicator, a unified communications client that gives users simple, intuitive access to their everyday communications tools from any web browser.

The NABC also enjoys greater peace of mind that, with a cloud solution, it can stay connected in the unforeseen event that it needs to evacuate its home office or event facilities. The team could quickly set up its “office in-a-box” at another site. Having SIP technology in place further reinforces reliability and redundancy.

A Slam Dunk with Coaches

For the event, NABC and Allegiant set up the Mobile Command Center inside the convention center. 

Prior to moving to the cloud, it required a couple of days to configure the on-premises infrastructure for each annual event. Now, setup takes just minutes. Plus, team members keep the same phone numbers, ensuring that colleagues inside and outside NABC can reach them anywhere easily.

Ultimately, the ability to stay engaged simplifies the annual convention and helps ensure a smoother experience for coaches and vendors.

“We get rave reviews for our event each year,” says Jim Haney, Executive Director of NABC. “It wouldn’t be possible without the help of our mobile infrastructure.”