AWS enables Netflix to quickly deploy thousands of servers and terabytes of storage within minutes. Users can stream Netflix shows and movies from anywhere in the world, including on the web, on tablets, or on mobile devices such as iPhones.

AWS enables Netflix to quickly deploy thousands of servers and terabytes of storage within minutes. Users can stream Netflix shows and movies from anywhere in the world, including on the web, on tablets, or on mobile devices such as iPhones.

Online content provider Netflix is able to support seamless global service by partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for services and delivery of content. AWS enables Netflix to quickly deploy thousands of servers and terabytes of storage within minutes. Users can stream Netflix shows and movies from anywhere in the world, including on the web, on tablets, or on mobile devices such as iPhones.
Source: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/?pg=main-customer-success-page
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Police department uses Office 365 to make faster decisions and better serve the community

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Police department uses Office 365 to make faster decisions and better serve the community

The Richland Police Department wanted to streamline its flow of information so that officers could spend less time filing reports and more time serving the community. It also sought to encourage collaboration among department staff for faster decision making. The department adopted Microsoft Office 365, which officers use to connect with colleagues and file reports from the field, gain access to real-time information to help protect the public, and work as a team to develop strategies and keep the community safe.

Protect and serve

Resolving disputes, responding to burglary reports, helping community groups—it’s all in a day’s work for members of the Richland Police Department (Richland PD). The department’s officers and staff must work together to safeguard citizens and visitors, handing off cases from shift to shift and alerting each other to trends that threaten public safety. “Communities have high expectations of their police officers,” says Sergeant Darryl Judge, Field Operations/Bomb Squad at the Richland Police Department. “In our line of work, we need to be as well informed as possible to do our jobs best.”
While Richland PD has always promoted teamwork, certain conditions made it challenging. Officers handwrote notes on the scene, then had to return to the station to transfer them into memos, emails, and other electronic formats. “It was a redundant business practice that took up valuable time,” says Judge. “We shared the obvious high-stakes information, but the details necessary to connect the dots in a case could still be in an officer’s notebook.” Even after the notes were converted, the department still couldn’t fully share valuable information across its employee base, which often slowed the decision-making process.
Traveling back to the station to file reports and access data also meant that officers were increasingly at their desks, not out in the community. “We looked for a better way to share information so that officers could spend more time in the field and be more effective,” says Tony Striefel, Lieutenant CCIP, Professional Standards and Technology Division at the Richland Police Department.

Knowledge sharing with compliance

In 2012, the department adopted SmartForce law enforcement software, a solution developed by Adventos Consulting and built on Microsoft SharePoint technology. “SmartForce provided the form tracking and controls we wanted, but we wanted to do more,” says Striefel. “For example, if we were working on a series of auto thefts, our analyst team would need access to officers’ reports, and the delays involved meant we could wait weeks instead of just a day or two for the team’s final analyses.”
Richland PD decided to augment its environment with a technology solution that would support department-wide collaboration and mobility. Finding the right solution involved more than just identifying the best functionality to suit users’ preferences; the department also needed its solution to meet stringent government requirements about data protection. Richland PD considered several conferencing products and analytics tools, but of those, Microsoft Office 365 was the only solution that complied with Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) requirements. “We’re taking our security and compliance to a whole new level with Office 365—one we certainly couldn’t have reached on our own,” says Striefel.
The department worked with Microsoft FastTrack for strategic planning and implementation assistance. “We received phenomenal service from members of the FastTrack team,” says Striefel. “We expected to deploy Office 365 over several months, but they helped us finish in just a few weeks.”
In addition to Windows Phones, lieutenants and command staff use Microsoft Surface devices, and field officers use rugged laptops that run Office 365 and the Windows 8 operating system. Employees also rely on Office 365 ProPlus and Click-to-Run to keep Office software current. “We allow employees to install Office 365 ProPlus on their home devices, too,” says Striefel. “It’s extremely helpful to have access to documentation from everywhere, because crime doesn’t stop when your shift does, and decisions can be made more quickly when everyone stays up-to-speed.”

Increased teamwork and responsiveness

The department’s biggest improvement since the adoption of Office 365 is its success in breaking down the silos typically found in police organizations. “It’s so much easier now to find the people in our organization who have deep knowledge, such as traffic cops who have years of experience with a particular location,” says Striefel. “We can use Skype for Business Online to see who’s available and get valuable opinions and consensus. We also use SharePoint Online to access officer reports, crime bulletins, and other documents without waiting. We’re taking advantage of avenues that we just didn’t have before to streamline our activities.”
“In fact, our culture is shifting,” continues Striefel. “We’re all communicating more—officers and others are sharing documents and getting more creative and frequent with their teamwork. Instead of one problem getting tackled by just one person, multiple people can now help evaluate and resolve issues because it’s easier to collaborate. As a result, we’re improving both the speed and quality of our responses to incidents.”
Today, every team in the department, from traffic safety to detectives, has its own SharePoint Online site to collaborate and store the most current information. Team members store finalized documents such as training plans and crime bulletins in Microsoft OneDrive for Business for anywhere access. And officers use this information to be more effective in their police work. For example, they may pull up photos of a suspect taken from surveillance video to instantly compare the visual depiction on their phone or laptop with the person in view to see if it’s a match.
The level of detail within team documents has also increased now that officers and others use SharePoint Online to share and review files across the department. Plus, having an accessible place for information has been helpful in connecting officers who rarely see each other. “Now that we can contribute to sites from wherever we are, whether we’re on shift or not, we can take advantage of the collective knowledge of the group to solve cases together as quickly as possible,” says Judge.

Real-time collaboration for better situational awareness

In law enforcement, gaining a complete understanding of a situation is critical to safety, and Richland PD now uses Skype for Business Online to help keep everyone abreast of current conditions. Field officers use video calls to present the scene to those in command at the station so that they can determine the appropriate level of support based on the seriousness of the situation. For example, Sergeant Judge went to help a neighboring district during a protest demonstration and used Skype Meetings to screen share so that his commander and certain specialists could see the demonstration. “I’ve also shared images of bombs I’m dealing with straight from the field,” says Judge. “With capabilities like these, we get better collective decision making, and we better prepare officers headed to a scene by giving them complete information and the right resources.”

Faster decision making

Speed to decision is critical in law enforcement. “With Office 365, we have a number of ways to get synthesized information out to officers in the field,” says Striefel. “Wading through forms took a lot of time, but our analysts now transfer data into data sets in Microsoft Power BI. We analyze data and share results more rapidly, which ultimately means smarter, faster decision making and the ability to put crime-solving strategies into place more quickly.”
Once Richland PD identifies a pattern, the department forms a project group and assigns tasks to help address it. Previously, those groups met physically three to four times a week. Now, they establish a SharePoint Online site to share all project-related information and use the built-in dashboard for real-time data tracking. They also establish a Yammer enterprise social network group for the informal collaboration that used to take place in person. “As a result of using the integrated Office 365 services, we’ve adapted our crime-solving processes and can respond faster to serve our citizens,” says Striefel.

Transparency and increased community engagement

Richland PD can better communicate with the greater community, reaching out quickly and engaging those outside the department with transparency, especially when responding to complaints. For example, a field officer can use her mobile device to instantly pull up a dashboard about ticket-related complaints or community accolades while in conversation with a community member. She also can see who’s on duty in a specific area and instantly connect that officer with a neighborhood resident who approached her with a question or issue.
“The more the department embraces Office 365, the more information officers have available to us from wherever we happen to be,” says Judge. “Staying visible and available out in the field has a positive impact on community members and supports our mission far better than working in the station.”

Smarter resource allocation and cost savings

Since adopting Office 365, Richland PD is making better use of taxpayer dollars because it has greater insight into its costs. “We can understand more clearly how crimes affect the community and our budget and take appropriate steps,” says Striefel. “For instance, if we see burglaries increase, we can anticipate the amount of overtime salaries and detective time we’ll need right then. And we also can reallocate resources in the coming months’ budgets to avoid running into problems while still maintaining top priorities.”
Striefels continues, “Plus, we’ll save resources in the form of officer time, because we’re able to be so much more efficient. We’re allocating six officers’ time better—over several years, that equates to better use of about [US]$500,000. That’s a huge benefit for public safety in our region.”
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.

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Construction Firm Uses Cloud-Based Tools to Advance Mobility and Productivity

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The Walsh Group, a construction firm, is busy building strategies to accommodate the proliferation of employee-owned devices used on job sites across the United States. For Walsh, the business case for enabling BYOD (bring your own device) is clear: the more employees can use their devices to access and share corporate resources from anywhere at any time, the better they can collaborate on efficient project management. The company turned to the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite to enable this new workplace scenario.

Situation

Founded in 1898, the Walsh Group is a family-held business that specializes in large-scale construction projects, including airports, highways, and correctional facilities. In 2013, Walsh was recognized as the top bridge builder in the United States by Engineering News-Record. Walsh builds its business with as much care as it constructs large-scale installations for its clients, always managing its workload to minimize financial risk and never undertaking a contract without the proper resources to guarantee its success. To that end, the company has invested in a modern technology foundation to support every aspect of its business, using solutions that drive efficiency while minimizing costs.

Taking Steps to Promote Mobility

Most recently, Walsh turned its attention to new IT strategies that boost mobility and productivity for employees. “As a general rule of thumb, the more time our project managers and engineers spend in the field, the better we are as a company,” says Patrick Wirtz, Innovation Manager for the Walsh Group. “These managers are responsible for information flow and the cost of the project. Instead of sitting at their desks looking at blueprints, they’d prefer to be out walking the site, talking to supervisors and tradespeople. They need to access and share critical project information in the field so everyone stays informed about project developments. If an issue arises, everyone can work together to take action and avoid costly rework and delays.”
Walsh took one of its first steps toward promoting employee mobility in 2013, when it subscribed to Microsoft Office 365. Employees began bringing their own devices to work to access the cloud-based business email, collaboration, video conferencing, and file storage services, as well as Microsoft Office applications. They liked the convenience of anytime, anywhere access to their business productivity tools. “We saw a proliferation of unmanaged, non corporate-owned devices, and we were getting requests to access more and more corporate data and resources from employees using their own devices on the work site,” says Wirtz.
Walsh owns approximately 1,500 iPhones. These, along with 300 iPads, are deployed to management staff. However, Wirtz estimates that there are approximately 2,400 employee-owned iPads carried onto job sites across the country every day. “We wanted to accommodate users’ requests to access data on their own devices because we know the business value in enabling mobility. But to do that, we needed a better handle on who was using what device to access what data,” says Wirtz. “In the construction industry, we deal with a lot of confidential data, especially with government contracts. It is vitally important that proprietary information, such as data that we use when bidding for new contracts, doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

A Blueprint for Enterprise Mobility

So instead of supporting a small, managed set of corporate-approved hardware, Walsh IT staffers needed to address the challenges of an emerging bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenario. More employees wanting to use their own devices, and a growing demand for ubiquitous—and secure—access to information had changed the IT landscape with as much impact as a bulldozer clearing a new job site. Instead of focusing its management objectives on corporate devices, Walsh needed to turn its attention on accommodating employees and how they wanted to access their applications—anywhere, anytime, on any device.
“We had to start with identity before we could manage users’ devices,” says Wirtz. “We wanted a centralized identity management solution that covered employees’ access to both cloud and on-premises applications and data. Next we needed a tool to manage and secure their devices, and finally we needed a way to protect the corporate data that was being accessed and shared. In other words, to enable mobility and productivity, we needed to know our users, know their devices, and know that our data was safe.”
Walsh didn’t want to buy and manage multiple third-party tools to enable this scenario. “We are committed to moving to cloud computing where we can,” says Wirtz. “It’s cost-effective and frees up time for IT staff to deliver more strategic value to the company. So we began looking for a single, cloud-based solution that would take us as far as we could go with our enterprise mobility strategies.”

Solution

The Walsh Group found the cloud-based mobility solution that it needed: the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite. IT staffers are using the suite’s three cloud-based services—Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium, Windows Intune, and Azure Rights Management—for user identity and access management, mobile device management, and file and data protection capabilities. “The Enterprise Mobility Suite offered everything we needed in one, cost-effective package,” says Wirtz. “We spent less on 2,700 licenses for the entire suite than it would have cost for one third-party mobile device management solution.”

Easy Deployment

Walsh deployed the Enterprise Mobility Suite in June 2014. IT teams were impressed with how easy it was to subscribe to the services and set up the components. “With a lot of the features, we could see immediate benefits with only a couple of hours’ worth of work,” says Wirtz. “We deployed the different components of the suite concurrently; for example, the network team worked on the application proxy capabilities and the help desk worked on the self-service and password reset features.”
Walsh also took advantage of usage rights for Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager server and client access licenses (CALs) that are included with the Enterprise Mobility Suite. Walsh gets an unlimited number of server licenses and a CAL for every Azure Active Directory Premium licensed user.

A Unified Environment

An added benefit for Walsh is that most of the components work with the on-premises technology that the company already has. Azure Active Directory Premium works with Active Directory, the directory service that comes with the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system. The Walsh IT staff gains a directory in the cloud for identity and access management to software-as-a-service applications that syncs with its on-premises directory for single sign-on across cloud and on-premises applications.
Similarly, Windows Intune, the mobile device management element of the solution, connects with the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager component of System Center 2012, thus providing a single console for both tools. IT staffers use this console to develop user-centric device and application management policies that cover both devices that are domain-joined and those that are not domain-joined.
Finally, Walsh IT staffers who are familiar with file and data protection features in Active Directory Rights Management Services, a server role within Windows Server 2012, now get those capabilities and more from Microsoft Azure Rights Management, the cloud-based service.
“The Enterprise Mobility Suite gave us the benefit of deployment flexibility,” says Wirtz. “We could enable features as we saw fit, without replacing our existing technology. Everything runs in tandem with our existing infrastructure, so we don’t have to worry about affecting the organization with a disruptive upgrade—and we maximize the benefits of both on-premises and cloud-based IT investments.”
Walsh is using Windows Intune to administer 2,400 non domain-joined devices. When employees enroll their devices in the Windows Intune service, they can access the Windows Intune Company Portal to download company-endorsed applications and services such as Office 365 services like Microsoft SharePoint Online collaboration sites and OneDrive for Business online storage space. “It is only because we use Windows Intune to manage and secure employees’ devices that we can enable mobile access to corporate resources,” says Wirtz.

Benefits

By choosing the Enterprise Mobility Suite, the Walsh Group got the comprehensive cloud solution that it needed to support people-centric IT policies that embrace employee BYOD. By taking this step to accommodate a new workplace reality, IT staffers at Walsh are helping their organization increase productivity. “We use the Enterprise Mobility Suite to empower employees to use their own devices to securely access and share their data,” says Wirtz. “The upshot? We’re improving project management and reducing costs.”

Improved Security Boosts Competitive Advantage

When Walsh bids for government contracts, it has to be able to protect confidential blueprints, especially for maximum-security buildings such as correctional facilities. If blueprints are lost or stolen, it could cost a construction company many millions of dollars to redesign the building. Before subscribing to the Enterprise Mobility Suite, Walsh locked its blueprints inside a trailer at a construction site, and project managers wasted time walking back and forth every time they needed to refer to the documents. “By using the Enterprise Mobility Suite to manage employee access policies, we are now securely delivering blueprints to project managers’ devices, right in the field,” says Wirtz. “Such capabilities give us a competitive advantage when we are bidding for government contracts.”
Walsh uses the Enterprise Mobility Suite to enhance data security and reduce risk in other ways. According to Wirtz, there’s an uptick in “suspicious sniffer traffic from abroad” when the company is working on a US government contract. A sniffer is a piece of software that “listens” to the data flowing into and out of a computer attached to a network. Today, Walsh is mitigating the risk of network vulnerabilities by using the reporting capabilities in the Enterprise Mobility Suite to flag abnormal logons. “We can see anomalies, such as one person logging on to two different machines on the East Coast and the West Coast at the same time,” says Wirtz. “Now suspicious activities can be investigated before any damage is done.”
Walsh also uses the multi-factor authentication capabilities within the Enterprise Mobility Suite to help mitigate the risk of spear phishing, which focuses on a single user or department within an organization. “We like the flexible multi-factor authentication options because they help to minimize impact to our users,” says Wirtz. “We are using the option that requires multi-factor authentication only in certain scenarios, such as when the employee isn’t in the office or is using a new device.”

Enhanced Collaboration Promotes Business Agility

As requests for proposals come on the market, Walsh could be competing with a company for one contract and very quickly be working with the same company in a joint venture on another project. The faster Walsh can move to grant access to the appropriate project information to federate with these new partners, the quicker both companies can get to work and stay in control of project deadlines. Walsh uses identity federation within the Enterprise Mobility Suite to help quickly and securely share data and collaborate with external businesses. “We quickly grant access to documents stored in our SharePoint Online environment to employees in a partner company using their own Active Directory user name and password,” says Wirtz. “Just as quickly, we can remove that access. And individuals who leave a partner’s employ are automatically blocked from access to Walsh data.”
Walsh is investigating using the Enterprise Mobility Suite to publish its applications on the Internet in a more secure manner than its current method of using a perimeter network (also known as DMZ, demilitarized zone, and screened subnet). “We want to share elements of our enterprise resource planning solution with contractors for cost reporting, so we need that application to be as secure as if it was behind our own firewall,” says Wirtz. “We can achieve this using Application Proxy capabilities within the Azure Active Directory Premium service.”

Improved Information Flow Helps Win Contracts

At Walsh, bidding for contracts is a collaborative effort that requires sharing sensitive information. In order to estimate costs and profits, the company needs to calculate the “production rate,” which sums up historical data from past jobs, such as how much concrete can be poured at a time. If competitors get hold of this information, it means they can underbid for the contract. To protect its data, only senior estimators at Walsh were entrusted with distributing production rates to other estimators around the country so they could bid on different contracts.
“Our senior estimators challenged us find a better way to securely distribute production rate data throughout the company, so we turned to the Enterprise Mobility Suite,” says Wirtz. “Now chief estimators use the Azure Rights Management service to assign policy-based access to the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets they send out. So only those employees who need to see production rate data will be able to.”
With this extra level of security at the file level, Walsh can distribute its content more directly throughout the company. “We are compiling our bids approximately 20 percent faster so we get our quotes in ahead of the competition,” says Wirtz. “Also, we are reducing the opportunity for manual errors while creating quotes, which could potentially save us millions of dollars due to inaccurate estimates.”
This capabilities also means that if a competitor gets access to the Excel sheet that contains Walsh production rate data, that person won’t be able to open or read the data because Azure Rights Management checks the identity of the user before the file can be opened.

Reduced IT Labor Enables Better Service to the Business

Since deploying the comprehensive enterprise mobility solution, Walsh IT staffers spend less time on administrative details. Wirtz estimates the IT department will save 15 hours a week by not having to manage the perimeter network. The help-desk staff is saving two hours a week from the 40 password reset requests that it usually gets every week, thanks to the self-service password reset capabilities that come with the Enterprise Mobility Suite.
“Because we now have a single source of truth regarding user identities and access to cloud and on-premises applications, we are offloading a lot of work in IT,” says Wirtz. “Beyond all the direct business benefits to the company that the Enterprise Mobility Suite delivers—a better competitive advantage, improved business agility, enhanced security, reduced costs—the big benefit for IT is that it enables us to be more of a strategic partner for the company. It’s been a great experience so far.”

Empower enterprise mobility

The Enterprise Mobility Suite from Microsoft unifies identity, data, and mobile device management in a people-centric approach. Company employees can be more productive by having the freedom to work from anywhere on virtually any device—with full, highly secure access that IT can monitor and manage easily and effectively.
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.

Contact Managed Solution to Learn How Cutting Edge Technology is Shaping the Building Universe of Tomorrow - 877-226-8761

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Global CRM solution helps Grant Thornton member firms foster collaboration, drive sales, and deliver better value to clients

To distinguish Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL) from its larger competitors, its member firms must maintain closer relationships with—and deliver personalized attention to—their clients. The independent member firms of GTIL are deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM to facilitate collaboration around sales, marketing, and customer service. The solution has driven an increase in the number and size of sales wins, while helping the firms offer better value to clients and maintain consistency in a complex environment.
In an industry that has long been dominated by the Big Four, the Grant Thornton organization is under constant pressure to differentiate itself from its larger, better-known competitors. To do this, Grant Thornton member firms, which operate in more than 130 countries, offer their clients something the competition cannot: personalized service and closer relationships.
“We are not, nor do we want to be, the biggest accounting organization,” explains Rick Stow, head of Client Relationship Management. “We compete with four much larger firms, so we differentiate by having closer relationships to earn credibility and increase value. We choose to be much more connected to our clients. We need to have a good presence in our local markets if we're going to compete.”
Grant Thornton LLP, which operates in more than 56 offices in the United States, maintained various customer management solutions (including SalesLogix); they lacked visibility into contacts, accounts, and influencers across all employees and practice areas. This sometimes led to duplication of effort and missed opportunities. Further, because account teams were not aware of all interactions with a specific customer, it was difficult to gauge the strength or extent of the relationship. With no way to identify opportunities for cross-selling services, the member firms’ ability to grow the business was limited.
With a single standardized solution, Grant Thornton LLP aims to ensure that the firm—rather than individual employees—maintains the relationship with each contact.
Going mobile
Grant Thornton member firms in the United States, Canada, and Germany currently use Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and on-premises for sales force automation, marketing management, and comprehensive account planning functionality built using the xRM extensibility capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics. In addition, two add-on solutions augment Grant Thornton LLP’s account and customer data with third-party research, including data from InsideView and LinkedIn. Future plans include adding social listening capabilities that will capture additional information from public sources.
The upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 will also allow Grant Thornton LLP to fully exploit the mobile capabilities of the Microsoft Dynamics solution. Today, a handful of people access the system on Windows 8 Surface devices, but because most employees spend a majority of their time outside the office, making functionality available on virtually any device or platform will be key to successful, widespread adoption.
“More and more people are asking for a true ‘app’ experience,” explains Stow. “One of the most appealing aspects of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is the ability to deliver the same experience across multiple platforms. Whether you’re opening a form from within Outlook, from a browser, or on a mobile device, you have access to the information and full functionality.”

Fostering collaboration

Finding ways to foster collaboration among accounting and advisory professionals is key to Grant Thornton LLP’s continued success. “Relationships are everything,” says Stow. “So people are very protective of their relationships. But to understand the full scope of a client relationship, we need to overcome that individual mindset and find ways to collaborate effectively.”
In addition to establishing Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a standardized solution for CRM, Grant Thornton LLP has found that other technologies have been key to helping employees share information and work better together across member firms. A large-scale SharePoint deployment includes more than 50,000 unique sites where employees share documents and collaborate on accounts and initiatives. Communications and enterprise social media tools, including Lync and Yammer, provide voice, instant messaging and conferencing capabilities — and connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to facilitate communication around client and account activities.
As a result, the employees in Grant Thornton LLP can depend on one another and deliver more comprehensive service to clients. “It’s not just about using the technology,” says Stow. “Our workforce today is more connected — and more productive. People see the interactions and work more efficiently, and that ultimately allows us to serve our clients better.”

Enhancing sales processes

Microsoft Dynamics provides Grant Thornton LLP with a process-driven CRM solution that accommodates different sales processes and regional requirements. For existing accounts, the connection capabilities of the solution allow each member firm to build virtual account teams that include all employees and partners involved in a particular relationship, who can collaborate on a plan to nurture and proactively drive the relationship forward.
Using the collected data in the CRM solution, account managers see strengths, weaknesses, and threats related to a particular relationship or opportunity. They identify competitors that might be serving the client — in addition to potential partners in other advisory roles who might influence sales — and collaboratively develop a plan to pursue the opportunity.
Since deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Grant Thornton LLP has experienced a 450 percent jump in the number of opportunities it is tracking, a 36 percent increase in average win value, and a 700 percent rise in the number of contacts in the system. In addition, by tracking employee behaviors in the system, Grant Thornton LLP correlates factors such as sales activities and frequency of client contacts to win rate and revenue generation so as to further refine the sales process through insights.

Delivering better client service

Stow is quick to point out that the benefits of the CRM solution extend beyond sales. “Our goal for the solution is not to push additional services on our clients, but to better serve our clients,” he says. “The enhanced planning and collaboration tools enable us to respond to clients more effectively and in a more timely fashion.”
In particular, he points to the ability to conduct proactive planning using custom account plans developed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The tool helps Grant Thornton LLP identify priority accounts and includes a complete history of account activity and plans for nurture or contact efforts. Connections to partners and other service providers enable Grant Thornton LLP to identify partners who might enhance the value proposition through collaboration.

Using data to drive value

The value proposition of Grant Thornton LLP is also enhanced by the analytical capabilities of the CRM solution. Using CRM in conjunction with business intelligence tools such as Power BI, Grant Thornton LLP can identify trends or issues affecting a particular class or segment of clients and then reach out proactively to other clients in that segment to address these issues.
The development of new services is also driven by analytics, which provide insights into client demand based on service line, service type, revenue, and other factors — which makes their very smart people even smarter from a sales, marketing, and business development standpoint.
“The solution enables us to be much more focused,” says Stow. “We can use data to make data-driven decisions and communicate to our teams using actual data. Everyone here is very smart, but the additional insights — based on a single shared version of the truth — make us all smarter.”
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.

For information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please call us at 800-257-0691.

World Animal Protection Seeks to Inspire Global Change; End Animal Suffering

World Animal Protection is an international animal welfare organization that has been in operation for over 30 years. To help end animal cruelty, it provides aid, education, and government outreach support. Effective, reliable, cost-conscious back-office solutions ensure their resources are used efficiently and they can focus on maximizing their charitable work around the globe.
To make the most of its resources, World Animal Protection streamlined its management of global finances, operations, and sponsorships. Planning, managing, reporting, and delivering support in an efficient and consistent way across their global operations enables them to concentrate their efforts on maximizing their impact on animal protection. World Animal Protection uses a combination of efficient processes and reliable tools to ensure efficient and compassionate resource delivery.

1. Be accountable to supporters

Transparency regarding financial sourcing and decision-making is key to a healthy ongoing relationship with supporters and funders. The right technology and business solutions can help make that happen.

2. For better aid, improve visibility

Seek to provide better visibility into donors, budgets, and projects. This practice helps World Animal Protection ensure that funds are being properly managed, as they continue to flow in, and that those funds are largely used to help animals across the globe instead of being consumed by unrestrained administrative costs.

3. Choose tools and processes that support your mission

World Animal Protection has consolidated geographically disparate finance and operations processes, and no longer relies on a disconnected collection of spreadsheets to manage its work. Now they have a complete, trusted, and connected network of processes and workflows, supported by a framework of reliable and cost-efficient software solutions - including Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Office 365.

4. Understand the concerns and history of key players

Serving stakeholders across the globe with consistency requires a mindful approach and a firm grasp of the history of your organization’s relationship with them. Find the right tools to keep track of historical information and put them to use. World Animal Protection uses Microsoft solutions to better understand and engage with supporters, stakeholders, and sponsors, without compromising security or personal data.

5. Get out of the office and into the field

Don’t spend all your time in the office, miles away from the people and projects you are working to support. Take the time up front to establish tools and processes that keep things running when you are in the field, doing the really important work.
Source: https://customers.microsoft.com/Pages/CustomerStory.aspx?recid=23890
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.
For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691.

Spearheading change: 3 questions that drive innovators, from Fast Company cofounder Bill Taylor

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Anyone, at any level, who aims to make an impact, buck the status quo, and define his or her industry can take a page from Fast Company cofounder Bill Taylor’s book. He addressed top-level IT professionals in his recent Microsoft Virtual North America CIO Summit keynote speech, but his advice is relevant to professionals across sectors. Like a true sage, Taylor asked attendees to consider a variety of questions and seek the answers within themselves to reach greatness. These three questions offer a roadmap for those looking to raise their game to the next level.

Instead of focusing on being the best player, how can you redefine the game you’re playing?

Changing the nature of the competition is a great way to get ahead. By “embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with me-too copycat thinking,” innovators come out on top. “The job today is not to be the best at what lots of other people already do. It’s to be the only one who does what you do,” asserted Taylor. One example is Umpqua Bank, a regional institution that was smaller than small—just six branches—until Ray Davis took the helm in 1994. Now boasting nearly 400 locations, Umpqua is Oregon’s largest bank, and this change was driven in large part by a focus on culture: the tellers also act as baristas, each transaction concludes with a piece of chocolate, and the branches become community centers after business hours. Umpqua is winning because it dares to redefine a bank as a regional resource.

 

Changing the nature of the competition is a great way to get ahead. By "embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with me-too copycat thinking."

 

What single sentence will describe you?

Taylor stressed the importance of simplification for both individuals and corporate entities. Inspired by the story of Clare Boothe Luce—who told President Kennedy that “a great man is one sentence” before she asked him what sentence would describe his presidency—Taylor stressed the importance of this kind of simplification for both individuals and corporate entities. This reductionist method forces leaders, companies, or job seekers to zero in on their goals, minus buzzwords and jargon. Once you know how you want to be described, you can make changes to bring that fantasy into reality.

It doesn’t matter what keeps you up at night. What gets you up in the morning?

Taylor was emphatic that success is rooted in caring more than anyone else, whether it’s about your customers, your colleagues, or the way your organization conducts itself in the marketplace. It’s up to companies to provide their employees and their leaders with this motivation.
One exemplar is USAA, the financial services company for active and retired military. Taylor said new employees are immersed in the world of their customers on day one, engaging in a deployment simulation (to develop empathy while learning about the financial issues service people face), eating MREs at training instead of a catered lunch, even volunteering to go through the brutal first day of basic training. USAA takes work that might seem passionless (such as selling renter’s insurance) and gives staff a reason to believe this work is valuable and necessary and important. This directly translates to better customer service and, of course, more revenue.
Taylor summarized his thesis with contributions from two unusual thought leaders: cognitive-psychology pioneer Jerome Bruner and acerbic comedian George Carlin. Bruner once wrote that learning (or as Taylor extrapolated, innovation) “is, most often, figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you currently think.” Carlin famously cracked wise about “vuja de”—“the strange feeling that somehow none of this has ever happened before.” Taylor believes fostering this feeling is a way to inspire Bruner-style breakthroughs.
The questions Taylor poses are a few ways to intentionally make the familiar feel unfamiliar, to look at your profession or your career or your industry as you’ve never seen it before. The answers may be surprising.

Source: http://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-in-business/spearheading-change-3-questions-that-drive-innovators-from-fast-company-cofounder-bill-taylor/?CR_CC=200745444

RREAL helps more families by using Microsoft Dynamics solution


RREAL strives to alleviate fuel poverty by installing solar panels on low-income family homes. To ensure they serve more people cost effectively, RREAL chose to manufacture the solar panels they install. They needed robust client management and accounting tools to manage the growing intricacies of the business. By adopting Microsoft Dynamics GP on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, RREAL has a single streamlined process, helping reduce installation time by more than 50%.
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.
For information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please call us at 800-257-0691.

Case Study: Business intelligence drives up revenue and informs future growth strategy for Othaim Markets Company

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Othaim Markets Company, a leading food retailer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, chose Microsoft Power BI to gain immediate insight into the business and to improve everything across operations from stock distribution to category management. The result is a tangible revenue growth with the help of BI and accurate data informing its business strategy.

Business needs

Othaim Markets Company is a leading food retailer within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Founded in 1956 as a wholesaler in Riyadh, the company has grown into a large retailer with more than 130 outlets including hypermarkets, supermarkets, wholesalers, and convenience stores.
To obtain information on its operations, the company was using SharePoint Server 2007 and analytical services from SQL Servers, both of which had been in use for a long time. Mohammed Al-Fraih, VP - Information Technology, Othaim Markets Company, says, “It was an old and limited platform in terms of mobility and access control.
“People within the business couldn’t really depend 100% on the reports generated by the system due to the limitation in the BI data sources, and at the same time, many data elements were fragmented on other systems. They were relying on judgment and Excel sheets.”
The company clearly needed to upgrade the platform and began exploring the market for business intelligence options.

Solution

Because Othaim Markets Company has an infrastructure built around Microsoft technologies and plans to invest in Azure and Office 365 in the near future, it opted for Microsoft Power BI and upgrade to SQL Server 2014.
Abdullah Edris, Head of BI, Othaim Markets Company, explains, “Microsoft BI has a number of strong tools with compelling features. And given that we have a large Microsoft estate, we can consolidate and integrate data much easier. For these reasons, the company built a new data warehouse running on SQL Server 2014 with Power BI providing business insight.”

The key advantages of Power BI include:

• accessibility of business data from smart dashboards and availability on mobile devices via mobile app;
• ability to build robust, reusable models to provide consistency in reporting and analysis; and
• embedded visuals designed to generate visual format reports for quick and easy comprehension.

Benefits

Othaim Company has gained a reputation for innovation given that the Power BI implementation is the first in Saudi Arabia and only the second in the Middle East.
Also, the company can now monitor business performance from any location, at any time. There are continuous, near real-time updates ensuring the latest business performance information is always available.
The benefits to decision-makers, staff members, and customers are numerous. Some of these are listed below.
• Automated KPI notifications alert staff immediately when stock sells quickly, thus enabling timely stock transfers.
• The platform also allows suppliers to monitor their products’ performance and stock availability through a web app directly connected to the BI.
• Staff members are able to quickly work with the data and identify trends. This empowers them to shape strategies within stores and radically improve category management.
• Information provides insight into customer buying habits, depending on demographics. This shapes much more accurate and targeted marketing campaigns. Moreover, the information allows for tailored SMS messaging to different customer groups rather than blanket messaging to all customers.
• The data also informs strategic planning by revealing individual store performance and has the ability to take into account the location of rival stores.
• The platform has become an essential strategic tool guiding executive level planning and strategy. The CEO is able to monitor business performance in smart ways, and this results in more accurate and strategic decisions.
Overall, Othaim has tangible revenue growth and efficient operations with the help of BI platform.
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.