Malaysia-based book publishing, printing, distribution and retail group upgrades to the cloud to create a better communications environment for team members
KUALA LUMPUR, 21 February 2013 – Microsoft Malaysia (“Microsoft”) recently announced that MPH Group (“MPH”) has chosen the Microsoft Office 365 platform as part of its effort to simplify, improve and modernize its communications technology platform for its team members, seeking to enhance information-sharing through the ease and accessibility of the cloud.
As one of Malaysia’s best-known book publishing, printing, distribution and retail businesses, MPH employs 300 staff at its headquarters in Petaling Jaya, Selangor and other offices, and more than 700 retail staff in 32 stores in Malaysia and Singapore. In the course of conducting vital business activities, the Group often struggled with its email system, particularly when it comes to sending emails with graphic and video file attachments.
“Keeping pace with ever-growing email attachment file sizes was a major challenge for our business,” says Mr. Lee Kim Hock, Assistant General Manager, MPH Group. “My colleagues needed to send advertising video files to vendors, and book cover designs to and from distributors, but capacity constraints meant our email server often failed. If staff wanted to send 2MB files, they had to ring me up to ask, ‘Can I do it now?’ Inevitably, bottlenecks occurred, and staff had to wait to send urgent emails.”
MPH maintained its own email server on purchased hardware installed at a local datacenter. However, to keep the group’s email system operating, Lee’s IT support team spent over four hours each week just on managing capacity and troubleshooting. If staff worked during the weekends, they often overloaded the server and caused it to crash. “For a low-end email system, its costs were surprisingly high,” Lee adds. “Besides the software license and datacenter fees, I had to pay for top-quality anti-virus software and an effective firewall to protect sensitive corporate data. I wanted a secure, low-maintenance, high-capacity email system that worked twenty-four seven.”
With that, MPH turned to Microsoft Office 365, leveraging the cloud-based solution’s advantages to scale on demand. In mid-2012, it moved 350 employee email accounts into the cloud with Microsoft Exchange Online, part of Microsoft Office 365. "The Exchange Online service is totally reliable and simple to run, and I save money on anti-virus software and firewall protection because Office 365 has excellent security features. I’m even saving more than RM9,000 in IT costs each year,” said Lee.
MPH will also use Microsoft Office 365 to improve remote access for its employees who now have richer, secure, reliable email they can easily access on their own mobile devices – a vital capability required in today’s rapid pace of business and ever-changing market landscapes, compounded by the “always-on”, “instant response” expectations of a mobile digital lifestyle.
“What particularly impressed us was the improved functionality available on Blackberry devices once email was managed by Exchange Online. Accessing our emails became so easy, even on today’s most popular smartphone platforms,” says Lee, before adding, “Since we moved to Office 365, I have not received a single complaint.”
“MPH’s decision to deploy Microsoft Office 365 to its employees is further evidence of the quality, security and scalability of the world’s most popular communication and productivity platform, as well as another key example of how we can work to transform Malaysian businesses together through computing innovation,” said Mohit Pande, General Manager of Small and Medium Solutions and Partners for Microsoft Malaysia. “By turning to the power of cloud computing, MPH has enabled its employees to effortlessly collaborate and communicate with each other, regardless of where they are and from whichever device they happen to be on.”
To try Office 365 for yourself, visit http://www.office365.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment