Each year, our sister publication Computer Dealer News hosts the Channel Elite Awards to recognize IT Solution Provider for their innovation, leadership, and commitment for creating value for their customers. As Canada’s leading IT channel publication, CDN invited solution providers to submit their best work to nine different categories for 2013’s awards. Here, we present the case studies these award nominees put forward to us. Find out who the big winners are on Sept. 11 when CDN presents them at the CEA Awards Gala.
Learn more about CDN’s Channel Elite Awards 2013
Nominee: XCEL Professional Services Ltd. from Calgary, Alberta
Describe the solution, service or initiative
Migrated over 160 users spread throughout the world from a POP3 email service to Office 365 using Active Directory Federated Services for account synchronization.
What makes it original or innovative?
The strategy required to do a seamless migration for over 160 users in numerous geographic locations while not allowing for any outage of mail flow or interruption to staff during the process. The planning required to do bulk transfer from the webhost and dispersed PST files to import into Office 365 took serious consideration and excellent execution.
Describe the improvement this solution made to the customer’s sales or revenues and provide measurable evidence of such.
It is unknown as of yet the impact to sales, revenues, and cost reductions.
Describe the improvement that was made to the customers efficiency, with measurable evidence.
Prior to migrating to Microsoft Office 365, Global Raymac Surveys was using a basic POP3 email service provided by their webhost, which did not allow for synchronization from Outlook to smartphones, tablets, or even to webmail. XCEL implemented the Hosted Exchange with Microsoft’s Office 365 offering and integrated it with Global’s internal Active Directory system, which allowed staff to login with the same username and passwords they use to logon to their computers and network drives in the office. The migration also provided Global Raymac Surveys full ability to synchronize mailboxes between multiple devices, share calendars and contact lists, control access to email via smartphones and tablets and better allow for collaboration between offices.
How did the solution improve the customer’s ability to serve internal or external clients?
The introduction of Office 365 allows Global Raymac Surveys’ employees to remain connected through a new, unified administrative experience which provides more avenues to communicate with clients regardless of location or device.
In what ways does the solution go above and beyond industry expectations?
While the solution may not be extraordinary, the service provided and execution of the project to ensure that the client had zero interruptions and was able to experience immediate improvements in their collaboration and communications is not common when performing such a heavy lift of an email system.
How does the solution further your customer’s green or environmentally friendly plans?
They do not require any additional physical resources to run an on-premise email solution which would consume electricity.