Financial Consultants Save $10,000 a Year With New Small Business IT System
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Company Overview
Financial consultants advise clients on the best ways to control costs. Like all smart operators, Perth-based Marshall Michael Corporate Consultants also applies this discipline in-house and has never indulged in technology upgrades without good reason. But computer hardware doesn’t last forever and when the company’s ageing servers began faltering at regular intervals, Marshall Michael decided to install new hardware with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003. Within three days the system was operational and the business was enjoying significant productivity gains. Best of all, Marshall Michael expects to save about AUD $10,000 a year in maintenance costs, which means the new system will have paid for itself within 15 months.
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Business Challenge
Perth-based Marshall Michael Corporate Consultants was formed in 1994 to provide general accounting services. The business has grown from a turnover of $350,000 in 1994 to $1.6 million today and it continues to expand.
However, at the same time the company was growing, its IT infrastructure was showing signs of age. Marshall Michael had two Windows NT 4.0 servers that supported the company’s 15 workstations. These servers had been in constant operation for four and seven years respectively and they were regularly breaking down.
Marshall Michael Business Manager, Rupert Cheong, who also handles basic in-house IT for the company, had his work interrupted on a twice-daily basis when the main server failed and he had to restart the system.
With staff waiting to access their e-mails and computer files, Cheong says business productivity suffered.
“Apart from the problem of server crashes, our internet access was slow and it was frequently compromised by virus-laden spam getting through our old Linux box – which was our firewall,” says Cheong. “Updating our Linux database for new e-mail addresses proved to be problematic and required an external IT consultant. The spam was just a constant nuisance we could have done without.”
With costs for this failing system adding an extra $800 to their monthly IT bill, Marshall Michael decided to find a solution that would not only save money and meet the company’s current hardware and software requirements, but also serve future growth.
Solution
After consulting its IT advisors, Marshall Michael decided that the hardware/software option best suited to its needs was a new HP server that came preloaded with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 Standard Edition.
For the partners at Marshall Michael, this package offered the best in current technology at the price they were seeking. Including tax, the cost of the new solution, fully installed, was less than $12,800.
The newer of the existing Marshall Michael servers was recycled and now uses the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system. Twelve gigabytes of data were migrated from Microsoft Exchange 5.5 to Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 30 gigabytes of data were moved from the old server to the new HP server. This is the equivalent of about 300 metres worth of books, yet the entire installation took only 72 hours.
Exabit’s Operations Manager, Eugene Botha, says the migration was easy.“We accomplished that in a single weekend using the tools that Microsoft provides with Windows Small Business Server 2003,” he says. “The whole process is now much more straightforward compared with the software we used previously.”
Other SBS 2003 software tools such as Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft SharePoint Services are also now an integrated part of Marshall Michael’s IT system.
Microsoft Exchange is the e-mail facility that allows staff members to stay in touch with their customers around the clock. Because Microsoft Exchange supports Internet Message Access Protocol, senior staff working from home or on the road are able to access e-mails via their mobile phones.
Microsoft Active Directory provides a user-friendly facility that allows the company to efficiently share and manage information about network resources and users. Microsoft SharePoint Services provides a portfolio of collaboration and communication services that connect staff, information, processes and systems behind and beyond Marshall Michael’s firewall.
Says Cheong : “Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 provides great admin tools that make it easy for people who are not IT professionals to create new user identities, manage the company’s website, make data backups and take care of system monitoring and reporting.”
Business Benefits
Moving from one Microsoft platform to another presented few problems for Marshall Michael as there was a defined migration path and built-in Microsoft tools to ease the transition. Once the change to the new system had been completed, staff at Marshall Michael noticed little operational difference because there were no new processes to learn.
According to Cheong, the major difference for users was that access to software, data and e-mails was faster and system down-time caused by server failure became a thing of the past.
“Accessing data on the server was marginally quicker and e-mail delivery was faster due to the new anti-spam software quarantining spam e-mails and reducing the load on the server,” says Cheong. “We also increased our ADSL speed from 256 to 512 download. This gave productivity a real boost.”
Productivity Gains of 25%
Cheong says the benefits of the new system became evident almost immediately.
“We no longer have to reboot the server constantly and there is less spam coming into our system because of the effectiveness of the new firewall and anti-spamming module,” he says.
“As a result, our business productivity has increased significantly. The time spent on client jobs has decreased by as much as 25%. Because we now enjoy a much higher level of system reliability, our maintenance expenditure has also been reduced by about $10,000 per annum.”
Within a few days Marshall Michael staff found they had access to a faster network that offered improved information sharing, more efficient e-mail communication and speedy internet access that all allows them to service customer queries faster. This has improved customer satisfaction, as evidenced by the positive e-mail feedback from clients, which in turn has generated new referrals from existing clients.
Working Outside the Office
Marshall Michael plans to expand its business over the next five years and sharpen its focus on the company’s core business of providing the best in accounting services.
“To help us achieve these goals we are going to implement more efficient ways of accessing our company data to service clients,” says Cheong. “This includes taking advantage of the faxing and SharePoint services that will provide our employees with access to company data from remote locations, such as from home or on the road.”
System Provides ‘More for Less’
Cheong also believes that the innovative technologies that comprise the company’s new IT system have given Marshall Michael ‘more for less’.
“Our new Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003-based system provides great value for money as a package because it serves all of the IT needs of our organisation,” he says.
“It not only provides the services we need at a cost-effective price, but it has also allowed us to consolidate and integrate our existing hardware, thereby reducing our total cost of ownership.”
“Our new system cost us less than $12,800, but with the productivity savings we have made by eliminating system downtime, we will recoup that cost in just 15 months.”
For More Information
Partner
Exabit Communication
www.exabit.com.au
Marshall Michael Corporate Consultants
(08) 9322-6600
www1.marmic.com.au.
Small Business Server 2003 R2 available now! Read about the latest release of Microsoft’s award-winning server software.
