CloudCaseStudies: Coldstream
Coldstream Capital Management, Inc. is a privately
owned investment manager of Boston Private Financial Holdings. The
firm also provides family office services to its clients. It
primarily provides its services to individuals, typically high net
worth individuals and families. The firm also manages accounts for
pension and profit sharing plans, pooled investment vehicles,
charitable organizations, and corporations. It primarily manages
separate client-focused equity and fixed income portfolios. The
firm invests in the public equity, fixed income, and real estate
markets of the United States. Coldstream Capital Management was
founded in 1996 and is based in Bellevue, Washington with an
additional office in Portland, Oregon.
Having taken their investment-manager-specific CRM system online, Coldstream noted that they didn't have to worry any longer about continuity of business. What had been a substantial part of their IT budget was now provided by the cloud-based service. When faced with a regulatory requirement to replicate their data offsite, they were encouraged to seek a similar cloud strategy for other IT operations.
Previously, Coldstream had to maintain
redundant Microsoft Exchange 2003 servers at both of their
locations which were reaching end of life. Rather than purchase new
server hardware and software, it seemed a better investment to move
to a more modern, state-of-the-art solution. Coldstream IT Manager
Kathleen Kettner researched various solutions online and consulted
with friends in the IT industry to help her determine her best
strategy. Pricing out
both on-premises and cloud-based strategies, Kathleen observed that
the advantage of buying your hardware and software is that you only
spend once, which was attractive to her investment oriented
executive management.
She also found, however, that with cloud-computing you spend
less.
"They liked the cloud-based CRM," explains Kettner. "The online availability of it was an easier sell to our management. Also, as regards Office 365, with us living near Microsoft they have a very good reputation around here."
Working closely with CloudStrategies, Kettner realized that only Exchange could support her compliance, archiving and journaling requirements.
The Best Evaluation
Kathleen Kettner points out that the best evaluation of the success of their transition to Office 365 is that her users don't see much difference in their daily operations. All Coldstream personnel use either Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 to manage their email. "Users like it," reports Kettner. "About the only thing they didn't like was having to enter an ID and password."
Regarding her experience working on the transition and data migration with CloudStrategies, Kathleen Kettner immediately gives credit where credit is due, exclaiming that "John (Alumbaugh, CloudStrategies Director of Consulting Services) was valiant! His ability to use Powershell was critical. We couldn't have done that ourselves, but you can see the skill and straightforward mastery he has. He was very responsive, just 100% for us."
In closing, Kettner shares that "CloudStrategies was supportive, responsive, and they follow through. That is just what you need for a small organization."