Microsoft Office 365Customer Solution Case Study

Construction Company Saves Time, Gets More Done with Cloud Productivity Solution

OverviewCountry or Region: SingaporeIndustry: Construction

Customer ProfileKoon Holdings Ltd. is a subsidiary of Singapore civil engineering firm Koon Holdings. The subsidiary provides engineering, infrastructure, reclamation, and other services. Business SituationKoon needed a quick, intuitive way for employees working remotely to check email without additional support from IT or time-consuming training. Employees also needed the ability to share very large files among team members and quickly check each other’s schedules.

SolutionOffice 365 offered a cost-effective solution that provides easy, remote email access; large file sharing; and calendar synchronizing—all through desktop PCs, laptops, or smartphones. Best of all, there was no training needed.

Benefits Increased mobility of email

communications Saved 20 percent on operations Increased employee

connectivity Eliminated the risk of data loss

“Office 365 gave our users, who were already familiar with Outlook, an easy email solution. Now, I just give them a username and password, and they’re ready to go.” Shahaizan Jamal, IT Executive, Koon Holdings Ltd.

In Singapore, Koon Holdings Limited has helped reclaim and develop land across the country. The company’s mobile engineering workforce needed quick and easy access to their email while they are in the field at worksites. Microsoft Office 365 delivered a familiar, cost-effective solution that did not require additional training, freeing up IT administrators to focus on other tasks, thus improving productivity company-wide.

Situation Continuously enhancing its capabilities along the value chain, Koon has gone from a transporter of rocks and stones to a main contractor in numerous iconic infrastructure and reclamation projects in Singapore. Registered with the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) as an A1 civil engineering contractor, Koon is eligible to tender for civil engineering projects with unlimited value in Singapore.

Because of the nature of Koon’s business, its engineers frequently work on location or travel from site to site. This takes them away from headquarters for days or even months at a time, presenting a significant challenge. “They are not able to check their emails anywhere other than on their desktops,” says Shahaizan Jamal, IT Executive at Koon.

Koon’s email was hosted by a third-party POP3 vendor, and employees used Microsoft Outlook on desktop PCs to access email. When employees worked away from the office, IT administrators had to manually set up a desktop PC and configure the user’s email at each worksite.

“It became a very unproductive way of doing things. There was no way to create another profile or a temporary desktop, because our employees would have to go through training to learn how to access the program,” Shahaizan says. “They shouldn’t have to do that.”

In addition, because users had no other way to share files than to attach them to emails, they often exceeded their inbox size limits. They also risked data loss by saving emails and files on their PCs, rather than on a server, while away from the office.

Koon needed a quick, intuitive way for employees working remotely to check email without additional support from IT or time-consuming training. Employees also needed the ability to share very large files among team members and quickly check each other’s schedules.

Solution Office 365 offered Koon a cost-effective solution that provides easy, remote email access; large file sharing; and calendar synchronizing—all through desktop PCs, laptops, or smartphones. Best of all, there was no training needed to begin using Office 365.

“Office 365 gave our users, who were already familiar with Outlook, an easy email solution. Now, I just give them a username and password, and they’re ready to go,” Shahaizan says.

And Office 365 is more than just email. It’s a group of cloud-based applications that also includes calendaring, collaboration, and conferencing services. Plus, users have access to web-based versions of popular Office programs. A 25 GB mailbox provides enough storage for emails with very large attachments.

Microsoft SharePoint Online allows teams to set up sites for individual projects, making it easy to track projects and share files—even large files containing AutoCAD drawings. Besides offering easy access to email, Outlook lets users share calendars so that they can quickly schedule meetings without having to coordinate available times via email.

Now that employees can access all of the Office 365 features from virtually anywhere, they have begun using laptop PCs and smartphones—giving them access when and where they need it. Koon is also exploring ways to use Lync Online, another feature of Office 365, for secure instant messaging or video and audio conferencing.

Koon can take advantage of all these cloud-based programs for a low, monthly per-user subscription cost, saving the company money in addition to countless hours previously spent on IT administrations and maintenance issues.

BenefitsImplementing Office 365 has dramatically improved productivity and decreased downtime, both for Koon’s IT administrators and its engineers. The company has also significantly lowered operational costs, with the potential to save even more with Lync Online.

Time SavingsPreviously, Koon’s IT department spent two hours configuring each user’s email on remote PCs. Engineers had to check colleagues’ availability by email—a problem solved with Outlook’s calendar sharing. SharePoint Online saves time by allowing users to see exactly which phases of specific projects are complete.

More Connectivity Options

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“We wanted a solution for remote

email access that worked simply,

without the need for retraining our staff.

Office 365 gave us a familiar solution that let our users do just

what they wanted, without further help

from our IT department.”

Shahaizan Jamal, IT Executive, Koon Holdings Ltd.

Thanks to Office 365, about 50 percent of Koon employees now check email on smartphones. Engineers who travel to worksites can easily bring laptops with them. This means that instead of purchasing new desktops, Koon can buy laptops and get the added benefits of mobility.

Less Risk of Data LossBefore Office 365, most of the users were storing data, including email, on their hard drives. “If a computer crashed, we’d lose almost 100 percent of what belonged to that person—documents, emails, everything,” Shahaizan says. Office 365 eliminates the risk of losing email, and with SharePoint, teams can share files without even having to email them.”

Reduce CostsBy using Office 365 instead of an on-premise server, Koon has saved significantly in operational costs. In addition, using Lync Online’s conferencing features can dramatically reduce the airfare costs of having directors in Australia fly into Singapore for face-to-face meetings.

Office 365 gave Koon the flexibility it needed. “We wanted a solution for remote email access that worked simply, without the need for retraining our staff,” Shahaizan says. “Office 365 gave us a familiar solution that let our users do just what they wanted, without further help from our IT department.”

Microsoft Office 365Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products—Microsoft SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online—with the latest version of our Office desktop suite and companion web applications for businesses of all sizes.

Office 365 helps save time and money, and it frees up valued resources. Simple to use and easy to administer, it is financially backed by a service level agreement that guarantee 99 percent reliability. Office 365 features robust security, IT-level phone support, geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, and the business-class privacy controls and standards that you expect from a world-class service provider.

For more information about Microsoft Office 365, go to:www.office365.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 Koon Holdings products and services, visit the website at: www.koon.com.sg.

For more information about Sapientia Holdings, the Microsoft partner in the implementation, visit the website at: www.sapientiaholdings.com/.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published June 2011

Software and ServicesMicrosoft Office 365

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Lync Online Microsoft Office Web

Apps Microsoft SharePoint

Online