Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Professional Retail Buyers Increase Productivity on the Move
Overview
Country or Region:New Zealand
Industry:Retail
Customer Profile
The Warehouse is New Zealand’s largest general retailer. With more than 80,000 active product lines, its goods include electronics, toys, home furnishings, clothes, gardening accessories, and services.
Business Situation
The company had been using Microsoft® Exchange Server version 5.5 for many years. As business grew and technology expanded, it needed an e-mail system to support mobile and remote workers.
Solution
The company upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. Today, employees have fast Web-based access to e-mail from any device. They can check e-mail while offline, which improves productivity, as well as using instant messaging.
Benefits
Increased productivity
Improved real-time communication and collaboration
Future workforce mobility enabled
Fast and easy deployment
Improved IT productivity / "Exchange Server 2003 has built-in synchronization support for devices powered by the Windows operating system. It will serve as the messaging system for a number of our mobility initiatives in the future.”
Baden Turley, Information Services Project Manager, The Warehouse New Zealand
The Warehouse,New Zealand's largest general retailer, is giving its buyers and other employees access to e-mail messages and attachments when travelling or at home—over any Internet-connected PC. Employees are able to check their e-mail more securely with enhanced attachment and download management, when synchronising their files with desktop PCs once back in the office. The service is available through the Microsoft® Office Outlook® Web Access interface within Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. Anywhere, anytime access is helping The Warehouse staff members to communicate and collaborate with their colleagues in the office when they are at shows or visiting customers. The Warehouse was an early adopter of Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003.
Situation
Professional buyers are often away from the office attending trade shows, particularly when searching for new products that will become the next trend. Keeping in touch with the office is vital, especially when events occur that affect product buying decisions—such as sales figures or political developments.
The Warehouse Group Limited, one of the largest retailers in New Zealand and Australia, is typical in that respect. It supports more than 850 PC users across Australia, including 450 at the head office in Auckland. For more than seven years, the company had been using Microsoft® Exchange Server version 4.0 messaging and collaboration server and, then later, Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5 to manage its e-mail environment. But the system couldn't support mobile or remote work.
After upgrading its desktop PC hardware, the company decided to upgrade its software. Baden Turley, Information Services Project Manager for The Warehouse New Zealand, recalls, "We could have used Exchange Server 5.5 for a few more years, but we decided we would get more value by combining the hardware refresh with a software upgrade."
Solution
The Warehouse considered adopting Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server but decided the enhanced functionality within Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 made deploying a pre-release version of the product well worth it. Exchange Server 2003 is part of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software.
Turley comments, "We decided to skip an upgrade cycle and go straight to Exchange Server 2003. The migration tools and security features were far superior to Exchange 2000 Server and we thought we would gain more value at reduced risk.
"Exchange Server 2003 has built-in synchronization support for mobile devices powered by the [Microsoft] Windows® operating system. It will serve as the messaging system for a number of our mobility initiatives in the future."
The Warehouse will also take advantage of enhanced Microsoft Office Outlook® Web Access and the cached mode in Exchange Server 2003, both of which will lead to a reduction in network traffic.
"The new Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 is functional and flexible and will enable us to give staff and buyers access to Outlook from anywhere in the world, whether at home or traveling—through any Internet-connected PC. They can also check their e-mail messages more securely with the enhanced attachment and download management," observes Turley.
The Warehouse also decided to upgrade more than a dozen PCs from Microsoft Office XP to the pre-release version of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003.
Turley advises, "The compatibility between Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 will enable us to deliver business value even further down the track, because of caching and instant messaging.
"With the 2003 release of Microsoft Office, staff members on laptops can keep working and replying to their e-mail offline through the Outlook 2003 cached mode. When they get back in the office, they can simply synchronize the data with Exchange Server 2003. So far, everyone who has used Outlook 2003 has commented favorably on its new look and feel."
Turley was impressed with the pilot version of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and decided to deploy the software across the desktop environment in stages. "We'll look at some of the new features and applications within the Microsoft Office System, such as Microsoft Office OneNote® 2003 [note-taking program] and Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2003 [information-gathering program]," he says.
The Warehouse also deployed Microsoft Office Live Communications Server2003 to use its instant messaging features. Turley notes, "With corporate instant messaging, we'll be able to see if staff members are online or busy, which will help us to improve real-time communication and collaboration. This will significantly reduce our volume of e-mail."
Benefits
Matt Strachan, Lead Technical Architect, The Warehouse New Zealand, comments, "Preparation for the upgrade was the most challenging and time-consuming part of the project. We needed to first upgrade all of our domain controllers to the required service packs, tidy up mailboxes, and perform server forest and domain preparations. Then, finally, we installed the Active Directory® [directory service] connectors.
"But once the new Exchange Server 2003 environment was set up, configuring and deploying the new Exchange Server 2003 was the easy part. It was completed in less than a day."
The change affects approximately 560 electronic mailboxes and Turley says, "The Exchange Server 2003 environment is a lot faster than our previous one. The migration had very little impact on the users—they couldn't even tell that their mailboxes had been shifted to the new server."
He concludes, "We plan to consolidate our servers from two to one because the new environment should carry a greater workload."
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System is a line of integrated and manageable server software designed to reduce the complexity and cost of IT. Windows Server System enables you to spend less time and budget on managing your systems so that you can focus your resources on other priorities for you and your business.
For more information about Windows Server System, go to: