Microsoft Office 365Customer Solution Case Study

Design Firm to Save 250 Hours Weekly and Boost Collaboration with Cloud Solution

OverviewCountry or Region: NetherlandsIndustry: Professional Services

Customer ProfileFounded in 1974, Evers Partners consulting engineering firm specializes in building design, construction, remodeling, and management for customers of all sizes throughout the Netherlands. Business SituationEvers exchanged schedule spreadsheets and huge computer-aided design (CAD) files using CDs or DVDs via postal mail, File Transfer Protocol, email, or online file-sharing solutions. Some of these solutions could not handle the large file sizes, and all lacked version control.

SolutionIT partner CAD & Company suggested Microsoft Office 365 cloud service to provide computing, storage, hosting, and management services for custom-developed applications and services.

Benefits Saved 15% on travel weekly Saved 225 hours weekly on

document search Saved 30% over an on-premises

"Communication is key in our business. With Office 365, our employees are a click away from meeting clients without leaving the office—and finding important files in a fraction of the time.” Edgar Westerhoven, Product Advisor and Manager, ICT, Evers Partners

Engineering firm Evers Partners works with partners and customers on all aspects of building creation and use. Employees spent unproductive time traveling to meetings and searching for data, and the files they collaborated on were too large for email and file-sharing tools. With Office 365, online meetings and comprehensive search will save the company over 225 hours weekly, while helping it simplify management and reduce IT infrastructure costs.Situation Netherlands-based consulting engineering firm Evers Partners advises customers on building design, construction, use, remodeling, and management. The company meets and shares confidential data with customers, partners, and contractors throughout this cycle. This high level of communication distinguishes Evers Partners, but senior employees were often out of the office for days at a time, and averaged 16 hours of driving time for 8 hours of off-site meetings weekly. Senior employees were spending too much unproductive time in their cars when they could have been in the office mentoring junior staff. Internal meetings often consisted of 30 participants, requiring strict management to adhere to agendas.

The company exchanged schedule spreadsheets and huge computer-aided design (CAD) files using CDs or DVDs via postal mail, File Transfer Protocol, email, or online file-sharing solutions. Some of these solutions could not handle the large file sizes, and all lacked version control.

The company considered setting up a tool such as YouSendIt or Dropbox on a server for improved data management. However, these tools have limitations, like file size limits, and require IT resources to monitor files for spam, viruses, and malware. To keep track certain CAD files you need metadata which describes the information in the files. To remain industry-compliant, Evers Partners must ensure its blueprints are accurate, retrievable, and archived for a certain number of years. Without a comprehensive search tool, employees spent up to two hours a day looking for data.

The engineering firm wanted to keep senior employees in the office more, and to improve collaboration, management, and storage to protect itself from possible liability issues. And because the company planned to add a branch 30 miles away, it sought a simple-to-manage solution that would not require hiring more IT professionals.

Solution In May 2011, IT partner CAD & Company suggested Microsoft Office 365 cloud service, which provides the computing, storage, hosting, and management services for hosting custom-developed applications and services. This was a good choice because Evers Partners was already committed to using a hybrid approach of virtual and cloud-based solutions to supplement its on-premises servers.

For communication, Evers Partners plans to connect an on-premises server running Microsoft Lync Online to the Microsoft Exchange Online Unified Messaging hosted service. To keep network traffic confidential, Exchange Online Unified Messaging encrypts all data that it sends, and requires that the Evers Partners’ on-premises servers do the same. Using Lync Online, senior employees will be able to conduct video meetings instead of traveling. Meeting leaders can also mute attendees’ microphones, to address questions that are submitted in writing without interrupting the speaker, and presenters can conduct polls to decide policy changes in a quick, orderly fashion.

CAD & Company developed Project 360, a custom solution based on Microsoft SharePoint Online, so Evers Partners would have a central workspace to easily share, edit, search for, and manage workflows and huge design documents with colleagues—while maintaining version control. For each construction project, an engineer will simply fill out a form to set up a project team and site, using a template that will populate many project values automatically. SharePoint Online also supports automatic content-searchable archiving and customizable document and email retention policies, which simplifies and improves data management.

Finally, Office 365 can help protect the company’s email environment and documents with always-up-to-date antivirus and anti-spam solutions. Thanks to these automated updates and the desktop-sharing feature, existing IT resources’ time will be freed up so they can easily offer remote technical support to the new branch—without hiring more staff.

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Using Lync Online, senior employees will

be able to conduct video meetings

instead of traveling. Meeting leaders can

also mute attendees’ microphones, to

address questions that are submitted in

writing without interrupting the

speaker, and presenters can

conduct polls to decide policy changes

in a quick, orderly fashion.

per Edgar Westerhoven, Product Advisor and Manager, ICT, Evers

Benefits With Office 365, Evers Partners expects to significantly reduce travel and meeting times, and boost productivity while gaining data-security features. Projected benefits include:

Increased Productivity The company anticipates saving 30 percent, or seven hours of travel and meeting time, weekly for each senior employee. Up to 30 percent of its employees will save almost two hours a day searching for documents, for an approximate savings of 225 hours per week. Edgar Westerhoven, Product Advisor at Evers Partners, says, “Communication is key in our business. With Office 365, our employees are a click away from meeting clients without leaving the office—and finding important files in a fraction of the time.” The company can also implement version control to boost accuracy by storing and managing clearly-labeled files in the cloud.

Simplified IT Office 365 is flexible enough to be deployed as a hybrid solution that coexists with the company’s current on-premise solutions. Evers Partners can use it to improve document and email management with search, archiving, and retention policies, for better compliance. Thanks to desktop sharing, the company can support its new branch with remote assistance provided by existing IT staff.

Enterprise-Class Security and Reliability

Office 365 includes anti-spam technology and multiple antivirus engines, so Evers Partners’ IT resources do not have to spend extra time safeguarding and managing data. Rob Oud, Director at CAD & Company, concludes, “We love our existing on-premise infrastructure, but if you compare an Office 365 solution to a standard Exchange Server installation, which requires that the server be replaced when it wears out, the cost is the same as moving to the cloud—and you get Lync Online and SharePoint Online included. The total cost of ownership over five years is actually 30 percent less than an on-premises solution.”

Microsoft Office 365Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products—Microsoft SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online—with the latest version of our Office desktop suite and companion web applications for businesses of all sizes.

Office 365 helps save time and money, and it frees up valued resources. Simple to use and easy to administer, it is financially backed by a service level agreement that guarantee 99 percent reliability. Office 365 features robust security, IT-level phone support, geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, and the business-class privacy controls

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Evers Partners products and services, visit the website at: www.everspartners.nl.

For more information about Microsoft Gold Certified Partner CAD & Company products and services, visit the website at www.cadcompany.nl.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published June 2011

Software and ServicesMicrosoft Office 365

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Lync Online Microsoft SharePoint

Online

and standards that you expect from a world-class service provider.

For more information about Microsoft Office 365, go to:www.office365.com

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