CloudCaseStudies: Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue
Nothing succeeds like success, so each issue of the CloudStrategies Newsletter will feature an informative case study detailing how different businesses have found higher service levels at lower cost by transitioning some of their IT implementation to the cloud with a customer we have helped. This issue we focus on how a nonprofit boosted productivity and cut IT maintenance by 15% with online services.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue(BGCB) was founded in 1952 to
enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to
reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible
citizens.
With over 100 employees and hundreds of volunteers,
BGCB long depended upon Microsoft Exchange 2003 as the email engine
that allowed them to keep in touch with everyone and coordinate
their participation in various activities. They also manage
fourteen playground, sporting fields and other sites throughout
Bellevue, Washington that provide after-school, teen, and
pre-school programs.
With their Exchange server reaching the end of its useful life, BGCB was looking at a substantial capital investment to replace the hardware, upgrade the software, and migrate the data to a new platform. Ryan Scott, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at BGCB, saw that "hosting internally does cause some issues in the size and scope of personnel we have supporting the system," so he decided to explore other options.
Microsoft introduced BGCB to CloudStrategies who quickly demonstrated to Ryan and his IT Director, Jim Foster, that they could easily upgrade to Exchange 2007 without having to invest any capital funds into hardware or software by moving to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) instead of continuing to host internally. Not only that, but they would be able to dramatically reduce their operating expenses and redirect personnel to activities that more directly benefited the children.
Scott and Foster acknowledged that continuing to use a familiar interface meant no time-consuming and costly retraining, and that having a truly fault-tolerant data center hosting their most critical applications meant they wouldn't have to worry about losing their key connection to the hundreds of employees and volunteers who depend upon them for coordination. This brought the benefits right to where the meant the most - in service to the children.
"The reliability and ease of use we get with Exchange Online leads to peace of mind. This is something we just don't have to worry about," explains Jim Foster. "I myself now get several hours back each day that I can spend working with our kids. To me, this is the best benefit of all!"
BGCB saved thousands by not having to purchase replacement hardware, plus the staff time that would have been required to install Windows Server 2008, Exchange 2010 and perform a migration from Exchange 2003. BGCB also estimates that they have reduced the ongoing cost of providing email by 50% plus the addition of redundancy, off-site backup and 7/24 support that they didn't have before.
Since their Microsoft BPOS service also includes Microsoft Sharepoint, Jim Foster sees even more value returning from their investment. "CloudStrategies set up a fundamental Sharepoint site for us, and provided us with some training and knowledge transfer so we could begin to devise ways to use this platform to improve how we share calendars and contacts, and how we manage our various sites and volunteers to deliver services. Better service, greater reliability and reduced expenditures are a great combination for a non-profit organization like ours."