“You don’t know, what you don’t know!”
This saying has become one of my favourites. As technical people we take the technology we use every day for granted. It’s only when we meet new clients that are struggling that it becomes apparent that others simply aren’t aware of the technologies that could change the way they work forever. A recent example of this was when we met a leading Manchester PR company. Their IT provider wasn’t engaged in their business, they had been left to fall behind in terms of technology and the team were suffering as a result.
Great Team with Terrible Tech
From the first time I met the customer I could tell they had amazing people; people that wanted to deliver top results to their clients but the technology they used every day was holding them back. As ‘IT users’, other than your experience in previous companies, you just don’t know how much better things could be.
Challenges
“My email box can’t be more than 800Mb!”
Their IT company had used an old email technology, limiting each users mailbox to a tiny 800Mb. The team were deleting old messages that they really needed to keep and when they deleted a mail instead of clearing it out of their outlook it scored a line making their mail difficult to read and organise.
“We can’t get at our data when we’re not in the office!”
Wow! For a company that only really deals in content this is criminal. Their IT company had provided a server to store their data which meant they could only access their documents when sat at their desk; to get access to data on the move they would need to ask a colleague to email them the files!
Solutions
Office 365 to the rescue!
First, lets tackle that email issue by giving each user 50x more email storage and implementing an intelligent archiving strategy to ensure things don’t get cluttered. With access on all devices, all of the time, we improved their daily working life with the latest version of #Office for Apple Mac and gave them a rich webmail client if they needed to access their email from another machine.
Providing anywhere access to the data was a game changer. We uploaded their files to SharePoint and used the exercise as an opportunity to tidy up their data. For the first time they were able to access data from any device (mobile, IPad, laptop) from any location, make changes and share files.
We didn’t stop there! We showed the team how to use document collaboration, so several people could edit a file at the same time – no more emailing round different versions and each editor could see real time changes; a truly modern collaborative experience.
Document linking also meant they could securely share data with clients, allowing them to approve live documents.
Finally, we introduced Skype for Business. I’m never sure how companies function without real time instant messaging and I’m sure the client will never look back. Getting information to and from your team in real time means lengthy email trails are a thing of the past.
For a few pounds per user, per month we’ve revolutionised the way this customer works. It’s a positive move for the team and will improve productivity massively.
If you want to talk to us about making a difference in your business, we’d love to be involved in making IT better for you.
