n Case Study

Niche Biscuit Manufacturer Moves to Cloud, Enhances Collaboration, Lowers Costs

OverviewCompany: Bakewell BiscuitsCompany Website: www.bakewellbiscuits.comCompany Size: 100 employeesCountry or Region: IndiaIndustry: Manufacturing

Company ProfileGujarat based Bakewell Biscuits is a manufacturer, supplier and exporter of cookies and biscuits to clients in Africa and the Middle East. The annual revenue of the company in financial year 2013 was U.S.$ 818,000 (INR 5.0 crore).

Business SituationBakewell Biscuits was spending considerable amounts of money on different vendors for managing emails that were unreliable and hosting a website which had a high downtime. It also lacked a collaboration platform.

SolutionBakewell Biscuits deployed enterprise-class cloud-based Office 365 to enhance communication, collaboration and incorporate a reliable email system.

Benefits Frees management from office Eases collaboration and

communication Reduces costs by 35 percent Enhances security and reliability

“In India, we pick up the phone to communicate with customers. But in European markets this is considered an intrusion…. Now I check their availability and confirm convenience over IM before I call a customer…. This strengthens the relationship between us.”

Mohammed Raish Suthar, Chief Executive Officer, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd

Bakewell Biscuits, a 10-year-old cookies and biscuits company with manufacturing plant and office in Gujarat, wanted to expand into the toughest markets in the world – United States and Europe. Communicating with these customers is different from existing Asian and Middle Eastern customers. With Bitscape Infotech, Bakewell embraced Microsoft Office 365, a collection of cloud-based email, calendaring, collaboration, conferencing, and web-based Office apps. The new solution has turned out to be a cost-effective and easy way to access and edit documents, respond to emails, and approve documents by voice or video conferencing with overseas customers. Not only does it allows the management to work with customers the way they want but it eases business pressures by giving access to information on any device. With more accurate decisions made on the fly, Bakewell is set to capture new markets.

Office CustomerSolution Case Study

SituationFounded in 2004 by Mohammed Raish Suthar, Bakewell Biscuits is a distinguished manufacturer and exporter of cookies and biscuits to African and the Gulf countries. It also plans to enter the United States and European markets in the future. It has made significant investments in a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, along with global manufacturing process standards.

However, as a small business with a regional footprint and about 100 employees, Bakewell was missing out on a key component and this was slowing down the management. There was a clear need for better communications and collaboration to manage its employees and global distributors to support growth, especially as the management focused on markets with time zones as much as 10–12 hours apart. “With limited resources our investments were focused on manufacturing. But we realized that in 10 years, the way people communicate in global markets had changed significantly, and we were lagging behind,” comments Javed Suthar, Head, Information Technology and Production and Purchase Manager, Bakewell Biscuits.

He recounts, “In 2004, we were just 10 people, mostly in the management that needed email access. Also, since we were all at the same location, internal communications was usually in person.” At this time, Bakewell started using a free email service supported by a local service provider. This was unreliable, with frequent outages of the external mail server. Also the service provider visit to the office added almost 10–24 hours of downtime.

Similar issues existed with the website, while the lack of relevant information was

slowing down every decision from strategic to execution. “This delayed everything from quotes, invoices, sale or purchase orders and approvals, and adversely affected the business,” adds Mohammed Rafiq A. Jethara, Exports Head, Bakewell Biscuits.

By 2012, the company had grown to over 100 employees, out of which 10 managed processes using technologies and the remaining were shop floor workers. “We realized that only a world-class solution would allow us to work together irrespective of location, which in our case is a remote village,” says Raish. ”It was time for us to start investing in technology that would support growth.”

SolutionHiring and maintaining a highly skilled technology team increases costs. Therefore, this wasn’t an option for Bakewell Biscuits, a small manufacturing company. “We wanted a low maintenance solution but all the features of a global corporation included instant messaging, presence, content sharing and audio and video conferencing with storage retrieval, which would involve high costs. We wanted all our information available from any device, and all the time,” says Javed.

During discussions with Bitscape Infotech, a local IT services firm, Javed realized that cloud-based solutions would provide a reliable and cost-effective alternative to an on-premise solution. After extensive research, Bakewell Biscuits shortlisted two solutions — Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365.

As Bitscape Infotech is Microsoft Gold Competency Partner as well as cloud accelerate partner, it presented a detailed overview of Microsoft Office 365 for small businesses and also demonstrated several

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“Through online meetings and conferencing, the solution has reduced travelling, telephone and shipping expenses. We estimate that within one year, the solution will bring down the collaboration and communication expenses by 35 percent.”

Mohammed Raish Suthar, Chief Executive Officer, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd

features and capabilities. “I quite liked the idea of a single global vendor for all our IT requirements, from emails to website, an intranet and web conferencing. With Google, we didn’t see all the capabilities come together as easily. Also, local support apart from lower costs was a big reason to go with Office 365,” says Raish.

In June, 2013, Bitscape deployed five user licenses of Office 365 Enterprise plan for small businesses for the Bakewell Biscuits management. The mailbox migration was smooth. The enterprise-grade email powered by Microsoft Exchange Online offers 50GB of space for each user. “With web and mobile access, we are now able to receive and read emails anywhere,” states Javed.

Lync Online gives the flexibility to interact without adding the expense of long-distance phone bills and international travel. Besides information on status and availability of users, it helps in setting up meetings on the fly as well as online chats. Moreover, personal archiving, up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spam protection ensure that the mailboxes are clean and clutter- free. Users can also quickly search content across files and email messages.

Bitscape has also deployed SharePoint Online. With this, the management has access to all the relevant information in a single place and the information is always current. Bitscape has also created workflows to ensure approval processes that communicate decisions effectively across the organization.

And finally, Bitscape Infotech migrated and updated the website as well, using the SharePoint Online component of Office365, creating sub-sites for products using SharePoint Designer and out-of-the-box

templates and thus saving annual web hosting costs.

Data is available in perpetuity irrespective of whether the employee is still with the company as each employee has access to Sky Drive Pro and users share documents online.

BenefitsPost Microsoft Office 365, Bakewell reaps the benefits spanning from rapid time-to-value, enhanced efficiency and productivity, ease of use and reduced expenses.

Frees Management from OfficeSays Raish, “The instances of productivity increase are phenomenal. The impact on the business and our personal lives is no less significant.”

Samir A. Saiyed, Head, Accounting and Finance, Bakewell Biscuits adds, “We can see all updates on the invoicing, purchase and sales orders. I don’t have to wait for updated emails from my team anymore. This significantly increases my productivity.”

Javed further explains, “I don’t need to get back to my desk to finalize the production schedule. I can start processing orders as and when confirmed.”

Allows Easy Communication with Global CustomersLync online allows Bakewell to communicate more effectively with its customers. It’s not just the technology per se, but how it bridges the gap between different business cultures. “In India, we pick up the phone to communicate with customers. But in most European markets this is considered an intrusion into people’s workdays. Now, I check their availability and confirm convenience over IM before I

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call a customer; allowing us to be in touch, respond to queries immediately. This strengthens the relationship between us,” says Raish.

Reduces Costs by 35 Percent Besides owning the solution at special pricing for SMBs, Bakewell also benefits from subscription based pricing. “We currently have five users and pay for them rather than purchasing licenses after foreseeing future growth,” comments Raish. “Through online meetings and conferencing, the solution has reduced travelling, telephone and shipping expenses. We estimate that within one year, the solution will bring down the collaboration and communication expenses by 35 percent.”

Besides, the company is also saving on multiple vendors who were earlier required for hosting, emailing and branding. Office 365 single-handedly takes care of all these factors.

Enhances Security and ReliabilityThe cloud-based Office 365 solution has secured the environment with automatic security updates. Microsoft is responsible for backing-up our data, reducing the time and effort required to do the task. And, with complete back up available for every employee, the management is also assured that data is available even when employees leave the organization.

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Microsoft Office 2013Microsoft Office 2013 gives your people powerful, timesaving tools to do their best work from more places. With new capabilities and insightful updates to Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, Office 2013 offers the complete package — with familiar, intuitive tools. Now you can express ideas, solve problems, connect with people, and create amazing results — in the office, at home, or on the go.

For more information about Microsoft Office, go to:www.office.com

About Bitscape InfotechBitscape is Microsoft technology focused solutions partner and Microsoft World Wide Award finalist for last two years, specializing in Microsoft SharePoint technologies and Windows Azure based development services.  It is an ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and ISO 20000 certified business and technology consulting company that provides Customized Information Technology Solutions. Bitscape does have many ready-to-use cloud solutions for Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. To know more about Bitscape please visit our Microsoft Pinpoint profile here or visit our website www.bitscape.com

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Bakewell Biscuits products and services, call (91) (2774) (243557) or visit the website at: www.bakewellbiscuits.com

For more information about Bitscape Infotech products and services, call (91) (79) (71615100) or visit the website at: www.bitscape.com

Software and Services Microsoft Office 365− Exchange Online− Lync Online− SharePoint Online− Skype− SkyDrive