Perceptive Online

The Wow Company is a fast growing and innovative accountancy firm that provides a range of financial services. In December 2006, the practice decided to upgrade its IT infrastructure to Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. Employees now use a consolidated file management and collaboration environment that simplifies daily tasks, improving business efficiency and enhancing client service.

Business Needs

Accountancy is often perceived as an industry resistant to change. Proud dissidents of this image are the employees at The Wow Company. Established in 2004, they offer accountancy, investment planning, and business growth consulting services to a variety of organisations. Wow provides each of its clients with a business advisor, an accountant, and a tax and financial planning specialist, who deliver a personalised service to meet specific client requirements.

Initially, Wow was managed as three different business units. Each had its e-mail system hosted by three separate companies using Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) to help users retrieve e-mails from remote servers. The lack of cohesion between the hosts resulted in frequent service downtime, without any single company accepting responsibility.

Employees could not collaborate easily because all client information and work was stored on their individual computer hard disks. As a result, business processes became unnecessarily complicated. Peter Czapp, Director of The Wow Company, says: "No one could access anyone else's information. Setting up a meeting, for example, was often a lengthy and frustrating process involving multiple telephone calls and e-mail messages. Similarly, because documents were shared by e-mail, version control complications arose, with different people working on different versions of documents or spreadsheets."

The unconsolidated system also hindered client service-employees couldn't respond to customer queries promptly because the information they required was located in different places and held by various people. This also made it difficult for management to keep track of key performance indicators and formulate an effective organisational strategy.

Another issue facing management was the cost of maintaining the outdated system. Employees had to back up their portable computers online every night, but because multiple computers stored the same information, the company was paying for unnecessary copies to be saved.

Solution

Czapp decided to restructure the existing system and sought the services of Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Perceptive Online. They met in December 2006, and examined two options-a hosted service and an in-house solution. The latter option proved too expensive and unmanageable because employees do not have the IT knowledge required to maintain an in-house system. Space was also an issue. "We didn't have the space to install the necessary hardware," says Czapp. "We also wanted the security and maintenance looked after by people with specialist expertise."

Wow chose to implement an integrated Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 solution hosted by Perceptive. By outsourcing to a host, Wow insures it is using the latest versions of its software and covering all licensing costs as part of its monthly payments. The system went live in January 2007, just seven weeks after the initial discussions.

The first task was to transfer all company data onto Office SharePoint Server 2007. The application provides a single, integrated interface where employees can collaborate efficiently with each other, and access information on any customer. What's more, they can use the tool anywhere, as long as they have an Internet connection and a Web browser. The accountants use a personalised intranet with separate folders for each client, which are split into three subfolders representing Wow's three departments. The product also has extensive document management capabilities, assigning version histories to documents and storing them all in a structured archive.

Next, they migrated users to the Exchange Server hosted by Perceptive, which allows Wow employees to share calendar information with colleagues and clients. They can also read e-mail messages on the move due to seamless integration with Windows Mobile® devices, which are included with the Perceptive suite. The combined solution integrates fully with Microsoft Office 2007, simplifying document management.

Benefits

With the adoption of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Exchange Server, employees now have a consolidated, reliable IT infrastructure that greatly improves their work rate, collaboration, and potential for growth. The business's green credentials have improved significantly because documents can be easily scanned into the application, reducing the amount of paper being used. Wow has also made substantial money, time, and space savings through the single hosted solution. All maintenance, and backup and disaster recovery is handled by Perceptive, leaving Wow staff to concentrate on business objectives. In addition, without upgrading to the new IT infrastructure, Czapp is certain Wow would have needed new, larger premises. "We're now able to provide a better service to our clients because we can collaborate more effectively and find information at the touch of a button from anywhere in the world," says Czapp.

• Wow saves a large amount of money and time by avoiding a move to new premises.
• Company saves 50 per cent of monthly costs with hosted rather than in-house solution.
• Business operates economically with less paper used in the office.
• Users can access all information from anywhere with an Internet connection.
• Employees provide better client service by having a single information repository accessible to everyone.
• Accountants collaborate efficiently using advanced calendar features and document management capabilities.
• Wow finds it easier to work with one hosting partner rather than three. It gets a quick response to its queries and simplifies billing.
• The firm can focus on core business objectives rather than IT by using a hosted solution.
• The scalable solution easily accommodates new users-since deployment, the number of users has doubled.

View the original case study on the Microsoft website.

For more information on The WOW Company please visit: http://www.thewowcompany.com

November 2008

Return to the main news section.