CloudCaseStudies: CloudStrategies Lives & Works on Microsoft Office 365
CloudStrategies
Lives & Works on Microsoft Office 365
"We were the first and probably still one of the only Microsoft
Cloud Champions to put our full production activity on Microsoft
Office 365," explains CloudStrategies' CEO Pete Zarras.
"
With a growing team of professionals spread out across the nation, and a business that completely depends upon making sure that everyone always has the latest information about developments in the rapidly-changing cloud computing market, CloudStrategies needed a way to keep everyone on the team in touch with each other at all times. What better way to solve that problem than with the key product at the core of CloudStrategie's mission-Microsoft Office 365.
Making Meetings More Personal
Like most companies, CloudStrategies consists of multiple teams, one focused on marketing activities, another on customer sales, yet another on delivering consultative and engineering services and a support organization.
"Each of these teams must meet regularly to keep each other updated on project status, share observations on software delivery and best practices, and support each other in a myriad of ways," explains Zarras. "By using Lync everyone can always glance at their screen to see who's available, instant message them with a quick question, and I can't tell you how many times we've been able to keep ahead of customer issues by pulling together ad hoc meetings and sharing our screens."
Zarras is referring to the Lync communications service, which allows his team to quickly and informally point, click, and drag participants into a quick conversation. Everyone sees the video image of whoever is speaking, and anyone can click to share their computer screen with other participants at any time, making it easy to show each other documents, diagrams, websites, or other critical information.
The Hunt is Off
Many members of the team joke about their experience at previous
companies hunting for documents that they had created and wanted to
use again. "It was
always a joke," explains John Alumbaugh, CloudStrategies' Director
of Consulting Services. "Here we 
were working for this big technology company and we
couldn't find where we had put our files. SharePoint Online changes
all of that."
CloudStrategies uses the SharePoint Online feature of Office 365 to store all documents, photographs, videos, and other materials where everyone can always get at them easily. "Not only that," adds Senior Solutions Architect Mark Gordon, "but when Microsoft asked us to support their recent "Only in America" marketing campaign we were able to quickly put up a terrific website so customers could track the progress of this Boston Whaler as it sailed from Norfolk VA to Boston MA demonstrating how Office 365 could be used on board their boat to manage the trip and keep them in constant contact with everyone. These sailors with very little technical experience were able to update their own website."
Working Together When Everything Works Together
"Our company is barely two years old," observes Pete Zarras. "Thanks to Microsoft Online Services we have been able to build an environment in which everyone works well together in part because our tools all work so well together. We track customer information using Microsoft CRM Online, we all build our presentations and documents with Word, PowerPoint, and the other Microsoft Office tools, we all keep in touch using email powered by Microsoft Exchange and messaging and collaboration powered by Lync and SharePoint. I don't believe we could have come half this far half this fast without these tools. It's great to be able to offer customers something we truly believe in."