Global Cement Group Streamlines Communications Infrastructure with Messaging Solution

“Microsoft Services professionals worked closely with us at our offices, helping to plan, deploy, and support the system and ensure our technology investment was being used to its full capability.”

Eugénio Paupério, Chief Information Officer, CIMPOR

With the help of Microsoft® Services, Portuguese cement group CIMPOR was able to take part in the Rapid Deployment Programme (RDP) to trial Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The pilot has already highlighted a number of benefits for the company, such as enhanced mobile communications and more efficient collaboration tools. A single IT team, for example, can manage the entire infrastructure from one location. A 60 per cent reduction in servers will also help CIMPOR cut costs considerably.

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Document published October 2006

Business Needs

Cimentos de Portugal (CIMPOR) is a large Portuguese cement group operating in 10 countries, including Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Brazil, and South Africa. CIMPOR manufactures and markets products such as cement, hydraulic lime, and concrete.

Innovation and the development of new technologies lie at the heart of the company’s strategy to deliver better products and services. CIMPOR wanted to examine its messaging infrastructure and find a better way of helping employees in different countries to communicate and collaborate.

Although CIMPOR runs its messaging and collaboration systems on Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, each site is managed and maintained locally. Eugénio Paupério, Chief Information Officer at CIMPOR, says: “With 2,176 IT users to manage, the decentralised administration is time consuming for the IT team. It is also difficult for individual IT teams to work together to deploy updates consistently across the business. We wanted to find a way to reduce administration and cut costs, while improving the user experience.”

CIMPOR also wanted to deliver more flexible working for users. Although some of its employees were already using mobile devices, Paupério was keen to increase the adoption of mobile technology across the company.

“It’s important our international employees be able to access their e-mail messages, calendar, and contacts from anywhere at any time,” he says. “While Exchange Server 2003 provides good support for mobile devices, we wanted to wait for a solution that extended this flexibility even further, giving our users more timely and secure access to critical information from outside the office.”

Solution

Working with Microsoft Services, CIMPOR took part in the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 RDP to roll out the messaging solution across 10 countries. In doing so, it gained a valuable insight into how the new management tools and features offered in Exchange Server 2007 can drive operational efficiency.

“We have a very close relationship with Microsoft in Portugal,” says Paupério. “When the RDP opportunity became available, Microsoft Services professionals worked closely with us at our offices, helping to plan, deploy, and support the system and ensure our technology investment was being used to its full capability.”

Around 40 mailboxes are involved in the Exchange Server 2007 pilot. Once fully live, 2,176 users across 10 countries will use the system. CIMPOR will also deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office system already used by a number of employees.

Compared to earlier versions, Exchange Server 2007 offers a number of new features. CIMPOR has highlighted several enhancements on which it intends to focus:

Unified communications integrates the company’s existing solutions—such as Microsoft Office Live Communications Server—with Exchange Server 2007 to transform business communications. Part of this, Unified Messaging, gives users access to voicemail, e-mail, and faxes from a single mailbox.

The company intends to provide employees with Pocket PCs and Smartphone devices based on Microsoft Windows®. ActiveSync® technology within Exchange Server 2007 “pushes” e-mail messages directly to the devices.

With the extended memory of Exchange Server 2007, which runs on 64-bit servers, CIMPOR can consolidate servers and store information more efficiently.

Benefits

With Exchange Server 2007, CIMPOR can control its infrastructure centrally. This will enhance administration and enable users across all 10 countries to communicate easier with Unified Messaging features. “Previously, voicemail wasn’t very popular within our users,” Paupério says. “With Exchange Server 2007, we can integrate voicemail into the messaging system, making it more accessible.”

Enhanced mobility with “push” e-mail ensures users receive updates and messages on their mobile devices in real time. Security is also enhanced, so critical business data isn’t compromised if users lose a device.

CIMPOR also expects to achieve:

Easier management with built-in automation tools such as Microsoft Windows PowerShell. “This solution offers us new possibilities for better management,” says Paupério. “Technical employees can manage the infrastructure more easily and dedicate time to higher-value development.”

A 60 per cent reduction in servers through consolidation, significantly reducing costs and management time. “This server consolidation will mean one team can manage the entire system from a single location, solving the problem of disparity across our IT infrastructure,” says Paupério.

Enhanced communications and collaboration for users, with integrated, personal-availability information offered in Unified Messaging and enhanced mobile access. Paupério says: “We will give people access to up-to-date information and the ability to work together and share documents and knowledge, regardless of their location.”

Significant cost reductions by managing disaster recovery in-house, with new failover protection such as Cluster Continuous Replication. “Previously, we outsourced disaster recovery to a third-party organisation, but the new features in Exchange Server 2007 are equally effective,” says Paupério.