These companies join other recently announced customers, such as Caltex Australia, FHI 360, and Santa Clara County,
which chose Office 365 for its enterprise-class capabilities,
compliance, security and privacy features, all delivered in a cloud
service with a 99.9 percent financially backed uptime guarantee from Microsoft.
“Businesses use technology to be competitive and meet the needs of
their customers, which is why they can’t afford to compromise on a
service that was retrofitted for the enterprise,” said Michael Atalla,
director of product marketing for Microsoft Office 365. “With Office
365, Microsoft has combined the familiarity of Office with the
capabilities businesses need, delivered as a cloud service they can
trust.”
Arysta LifeScience is one of the largest privately owned agrochemical
companies in the world, with sales and services in more than 125
countries. In attempting to connect 34 different email environments,
Arysta initially opted for Google Apps but quickly found employees were
unhappy with the experience — they couldn’t share calendars and had
limited offline capabilities — so Arysta switched to Office 365. With
Office 365, employees can now integrate email and shared calendars and
use IM and webconferencing to connect with colleagues around the world
while they are on the road or working from home.
“Google Apps was difficult to use and lacked the capabilities our
employees had grown accustomed to in Office,” said Dustin Collins,
global head of IT infrastructure, Arysta LifeScience. “With Office 365
we’re able to interact and engage with each other more, allowing us to
efficiently and quickly respond to new opportunities. As a result, we’re
a more agile, competitive organization.”
Robust certification and standards
Office 365 offers the most robust set of certifications and standards
options of any major cloud-based productivity service, and it is the
first and only major cloud productivity service to address the rigors of
the federal government’s HIPAA requirements. Office 365 is compliant
with world-class industry standards, including ISO 27001, EU model
clauses and Federal Information Security Management Act. Microsoft is
committed to working with its customers to meet their unique security,
compliance and privacy needs, including those that must meet Criminal
Justice Information Security.
Based in Durham, N.C., FHI 360 is a global nonprofit human development
organization dedicated to improving lives by advancing integrated,
locally driven solutions. It also switched from Google Apps to Office
365 because it met the organization’s security and privacy requirements.
“As a nonprofit organization, we work on educational and public health
issues and must comply with privacy regulations related to the U.S.
federal government,” said Douglas Wilkins, director of IT infrastructure
at FHI 360. “Not only did Office 365 have privacy features in line with
our requirements, but we know where our data is stored — it’s essential
for us to have control and set parameters on who views it. That was not
possible with Google.”
Freedom of choice
In today’s business environment, many organizations require the
flexibility to enable employees to work anytime, anywhere across devices
and platforms. With Office 365, employees can sign in from virtually
any device, and their documents and personalized settings roam with
them, allowing them to quickly pick up right where they left off. With
more than 4,000 employees spread across multiple countries, FHI 360 can
easily connect and share best practices and improve services with Office
365 while being more strategic with spending. The organization expects
to save approximately US$20,000 annually by utilizing IM and
webconferencing capabilities in Office 365. Unlike Google Apps, Office
365 enabled FHI 360 to move to the cloud on its own terms by supporting
both on-premises and cloud deployments in its environment.
“Our global work environment sometimes requires us to work in
countries where cloud services aren’t yet available or feasible because
broadband connections are limited,” Wilkins said. “With Google, we had
to be all in or nothing at all. Having the flexibility to make the
deployment choices that were right for our business means we can
consolidate systems onto the same platform regardless of whether we’re
using the cloud or an in-house server.”
Additional new Microsoft Office 365 customers
• Arysta LifeScience. Arysta LifeScience is an agrochemical company
spread across more than 125 countries and employing 3,400 people. Arysta
LifeScience wanted to standardize its email platforms on a cloud-based
email service and initially chose Google Apps for Business. However,
Google Apps was difficult to use and lacked the capabilities its
employees had grown accustomed to in Office. Arysta LifeScience
introduced Office 365 to its employees and found immediate value — the
company is no longer a collection of disparate entities in different
countries. It is a globally connected organization where employees can
instantly find and communicate with one another.
• SEPCOIII. Based in Qingdao, China, SEPCOIII employs 5,800 people
and designs and builds power plants around the world. The company wanted
a single solution that employees could use to communicate and
collaborate with other employees, partners and customers around the
world. Staff had used Gmail but found it unreliable, while most found
the calendar feature cumbersome and were not even using it. Because
Gmail provided only limited offline functionality, it was difficult for
employees to work remotely. With Office 365, SEPCOIII has a dependable
and robust cloud-based solution that significantly reduces costs and
boosts employee productivity.
• Sensia Hälsovård AB. Healthcare provider Sensia Hälsovård AB
needed a single communication and collaboration platform to accommodate
its rapid growth. Approximately 30 percent of its employees had been
using Gmail, but found it cumbersome, unintuitive and when employees
needed support, it was difficult for them to obtain it. The company
eventually chose Office 365 and found it was a more professional service
as built-in scalability is crucial to a rapidly growing company.
More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available in the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom. More information on Office Web Apps is available here, and more information about Office 365 is here and here.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses
realize their full potential.
Source: Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
