Microsoft Office 365Customer Solution Case Study

Sustainability Company Reduces Email Messaging Costs, Carbon Footprint with Online Email

OverviewCountry or Region: SingaporeIndustry: Energy

Customer ProfileSindicatum Carbon Capital is a Singapore-based sustainable natural resources company supporting projects that reduce or displace greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. Business SituationSCC was looking for a robust, cost-effective, and reliable cloud-based email system to support its 160 employees worldwide that would align with its corporate sustainability policy.

SolutionSCC chose to use the Microsoft Office 365 solution because of the sustainability benefits it offered, the cost savings, and the product suite’s familiar interface, as employees were already using the on-premise version.

Benefits Saved up to US$80,000

annually Reduced carbon footprint 30% Completed email migration in

less than 2 months

"The familiar user experience and easy migration process, together with the cost savings we received, have made the move worthwhile.” Bobby Jimenez, Chief Technology Officer, Sindicatum Carbon Capital

Singapore-based Sindicatum Carbon Capital Group (“SCC”) is a climate change and sustainable resources company with offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta, London, New Delhi, Taiyuan and Washington D.C. The company identifies, designs, and implements renewable energy, energy substitution, and energy demand projects using new and innovative technologies. SCC views energy-efficient solutions as critical to its business as well as key to its IT strategy.

Situation As a climate change and sustainable resources company, SCC runs its operations according to a comprehensive corporate sustainability policy, which is crucial to both its investment approach and its ability to exist as a business. As a result, SCC was looking for a cost-effective cloud-based solution that would support its sustainable initiatives as well as its 160 employees.

The company’s employee base is comprised of a team of engineers, technicians, and climate change specialists working in the field to identify opportunities, develop solutions, implement projects, and oversee operations. Because of this, email communication is critical in enabling all employees to share information and documents as quickly as possible, regardless of where they are located. While it relied on Microsoft Exchange Server to provide these capabilities, the company wanted to migrate its email solution to the cloud to both reduce the time its IT staff needed to manage and monitor on-site infrastructure, as well as align with its focus

The company had previously worked to reduce its carbon footprint and operating costs by substituting telco-based audio conferencing and mobile phones for interoffice travel, but SCC found that these solutions weren’t as easy to use as employees would have liked, which made it difficult to quickly engage in two- or three-way conversations while on the go.

SCC was looking to integrate cloud-based technologies that wouldn’t require extensive migration time or employee training—while enhancing collaboration. The company considered options from Google Apps and Rackspace, as the latter offers a hosted version of Microsoft Exchange.

After extensive review of possible solutions, SCC chose to use Microsoft Office 365 due to the sustainability benefits it offered, the cost savings, and its familiar interface, as employees were already acquainted with Microsoft technologies.

SolutionBobby Jimenez, SCC’s Chief Technology Officer, spent two years evaluating email solutions. He supported the idea of moving to a cloud model—and specifically Office 365—because online applications reduce the need for servers, and in turn electricity, thus supporting the company’s imperative for sustainability.

“We needed a sustainable, reliable, expandable, safe, and cost-effective system. We were already using the on-premise Microsoft Exchange Server, so our employees' experience in using Exchange was a plus. All these factors combined drove us to use Office 365,” says Jimenez.

Jimenez explains that at US$5 per user, Microsoft Exchange Online was more cost-effective than

implementing an on-premises solution. “With Office 365, we’re saving nearly US$80,000 savings annually in terms of licensing, maintenance, planning and integration costs,” he says. SCC finds that Microsoft Lync Online, which provides instant messaging capabilities, will enable employees to send out a query to a colleague and get a response faster than they can over the phone. “We plan to have our employees use Lync Online to conduct impromptu two- or three-way conversations, as needed because it’s faster and more convenient to collaborate,” Jimenez remarks.

Jimenez adds that employees could get up-and-running on Office 365 in no time, which reduces the downtime traditionally associated with learning a new system. In addition, the cloud-based solution easily integrates with the company’s existing Exchange solution. "The easy migration process, together with the cost savings we received, has made the move to Office 365 more than worthwhile," he says.

Benefits SCC had already taken great strides in reducing its costs and carbon footprint while enabling employee collaboration. Office 365 is enabling the company to take a giant leap forward in these areas.

Reduced Carbon FootprintA recent study, conducted by Microsoft together with Accenture and WSP Environment & Energy, found that energy use and carbon emissions can be reduced by more than 90 percent for small deployments. Based on this, SCC estimates that moving to the cloud can reduce its own carbon footprint in the near term by 30 percent.

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“Office 365 allows us to enjoy the same powerful business

productivity tools as larger enterprises,

while also giving our growing organization

the flexibility and scalability to stay

competitive in today’s connected

marketplace.” Bobby Jimenez, Chief Technology

Officer, Sindicatum Carbon Capital

Improved CommunicationBy reducing its dependence on on-premises servers—and the time required to manage them—Jimenez estimates that Office 365 will save SCC up to US$80,000 per year. And because it includes Exchange Online, employees get the same reliable email service and familiar Microsoft interface—only now hosted in the cloud.

Lync Online also simplifies and enhances communication by providing easy-to-use web-based conferencing tools. The application includes a presence indicator that enables users to see if a colleague is at his or her desk and available. “With Lync Online, we will be able to click and connect right away,” notes Jimenez.

Fast Migration—And GrowthSCC was able to migrate to Office 365 in less than two months, and employees didn’t need extensive training to use the web-based solution.

Jimenez indicates that the power and ease-of-use of Office 365 provides the company with more ways to grow. “Office 365 allows us to enjoy the same powerful business productivity tools as larger enterprises, while also giving our growing organization the flexibility and scalability to stay competitive in today’s connected marketplace. We’re excited about Office 365 and are confident that it will play a key role in taking the performance of our business to the next level,” he says.

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 Sindicatum Carbon Capital products and services, visit the website at: http://www.carbon-capital.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