MBC Group advances its digital transformation with Microsoft Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility Suite

The Dubai-based media company has leveraged the capabilities of Microsoft products to embrace the advantages of digital transformation and build a smarter workplace for its employees.

MBC replaced tools from multiple vendors with a single Office 365 ecosystem, consolidating internal operations and building a simpler user experience that allows flexibility, mobility, and security for their workforce.

Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC Group) is the largest media company in the Middle

East and North Africa region. Launched in 1991, MBC Group provides a wide range of

services that bring premium content and entertainment to consumers via television, radio,

digital, multi-touch points and multi-platforms.

MBC Group aims to maintain its status as the leading multi-platform provider by embracing

digital transformation not only in developing its media platforms but the organization itself.

The company has recently deepened its partnership with Microsoft to transform into a

modern and innovative workplace where employee productivity meets top security and

significant cost reductions.

Learn how the MBC Group managed to streamline and consolidate their productivity and

security operations with the help of Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS).

Facing the challenge of multiple technologies

The organization was on the lookout for a new solution because it experienced challenges

known to every company that chooses to rely on several different vendors for various areas

of its operation:

Too many products from multiple vendors – that complexity presented a significant

challenge to administrators, affecting their efficiency in the company's daily activities such

as troubleshooting. “Having to deal with several different vendors made procurement,

purchasing, and renewal processes far more difficult. Choosing a single world reputed

vendor who would deliver all the required functionalities was a key optimization step,” said

Mr. Aus Alzubaidi, Head of IT & MAM at MBC Group.

Building a simpler user experience – MBC also wanted to look after its employees and

improve their experience by reducing the number of tools and building a more

straightforward user experience. The company aimed to solve this problem by offering a set

of tools embedded in one ecosystem.

“We chose Microsoft not only because its vast ecosystem of

tools promised to help us solve these challenges, but also

because of their top quality and reliability.” Aus Alzubaidi, Head of IT & MAM at MBC Group

Email efficiency and security with Office 365

The move to Office 365 brought multiple benefits to MBC employees, but the most critical

improvement was related to the organization’s email capabilities. Thanks to the move,

employees gained more capacity and better troubleshooting for email archives. The mailbox

size per employee was increased from 2GB to 100GB. The mailbox archive performance

increased exponentially as all archives are stored online and users have unlimited archive

storage provided by Microsoft.

Compliance journaling is automated in Office 365, allowing administrators to dedicate more

time to other tasks. The solution also ensures top security. When a user receives an external

email with hyperlinks, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) scans and sandboxes

attachments in a safe environment. Since the implementation of the solution, MBC is able to

block an average of 400,000 potential threats per month (including spam & malware). On

top of that, administrators can set granular permissions on emails – for example, to block

particular messages from being forwarded or printed.

Moreover, the endpoint security communicates with email security system and SharePoint

security, providing a 360-degree view of the organization's security posture. “Integrating all

Office applications into one umbrella ecosystem was a good move for us. Equipped with a

toolkit that contains functionalities ranging from email to Skype for Business, our employees

can take full advantage of this collaborative environment knowing that it's reliable and

secure,” said Mr. Alzubaidi.

Launching workforce mobility

The company employs a broad range of professionals across its ten locations. Launching

access to mobile applications with the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) had a big impact on

employee productivity and satisfaction.

“Employees are now able to work from anywhere. Managers

can confidently allow a group of people to work from home

instead of commuting and wasting several hours while stuck

in traffic. We can easily accommodate that need now.” Aus Alzubaidi, Head of IT & MAM at MBC Group

MBC is enabling an improvement in the quality of life among its employees with the

introduction of mobile applications that provide access to company resources. Thanks to the

newly-gained mobility of its services, the company will be able to open smaller offices closer

to where its workforce lives. Instead of spending time on commuting to the Dubai Media

City where MBC is headquartered, the staff can reach one of these offices in no time, all the

while maintaining access to critical company applications.

Workplace analytics

MBC was also set to improve employee productivity by equipping workers with tools that

would help them get insights about their working habits.

“We have around 3,000 employees in more than 10 locations in the MENA region and

around the world. We have always wondered how our employees were spending their time

at the office. Are they dedicating too much time to meetings? Are they able to achieve a

work-life balance? We have been asking ourselves these questions for a long time and

decided to team up with Microsoft to finally get some answers,” said Mr. Alzubaidi.

From the perspective of users, nothing has changed: they don't need to track their time or

report anything. The Office 365 Workplace Analytics engine collects data about usage logs

from company applications at all times, aggregating data into insightful reports to help

improve efficiencies. For privacy concerns, the data is collected anonymously and

aggregated across teams and functions to present activity trends among employees in

different teams or performing different roles.

“At the moment, we are fine-tuning our analytics processes to ensure that they gather the

data we need for delivering valuable insights to team leaders and department managers.

Our next step will be careful analysis of trends we see in the data and formulating plans to

enable higher efficiency in our workforce,” said Mr. Alzubaidi.

Implementation results

Implementing Microsoft products was a straightforward and cost-effective process. The

company had certified experts on board who could manage the deployment of the

migration with minimal help from Microsoft.

Apart from considerable gains in employee productivity and satisfaction, the most

significant result of the recent implementation of Microsoft tools were cost reductions in

areas ranging from staff to operational expenses.

The company's two exchange administrators whose sole responsibility was to manage the

day to day operations of the messaging systems, are able to perform other functions as well

now. MBC doesn't need to cover any expenses for an on-premise email infrastructure

anymore because they rely on Microsoft's cloud-based platform.

Moreover, instead of passive deployment for disaster recovery, the organization is now

backed up in the cloud. Office 365 services are unaffected by any interruptions to power at

any of MBC’s offices, providing higher operational resilience.

What about the future? “We're evaluating several engagements with Microsoft. For

example, we're considering transforming TV playout operations to be based on Azure Cloud.

We also plan to introduce innovations to broadcasting in another area: our Media Asset

Management content libraries. By moving them to Azure Storage, we stand to generate

automated new insights on the fly that will save time and money. Finally, we're also

planning to expand the IT workload footprint on Azure Cloud by migrating more services

from the HQ,” concluded Mr. Joe Igoe, Chief Operating Officer at MBC Group.

“We are in a very dynamic and demanding industry that has a

small margin for errors. It's great to know that we can rely on

Microsoft as a strategic partner to facilitate the digital

transformation of the business.” Joe Igoe, Chief Operating Officer at MBC Group