4-page Case Study - Posted 11/4/2009

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Ciar

Ciar Drops OpenOffice.org, Chooses Microsoft Office System For Collaboration Needs

Ciar started out as a family-run business in 1979, making mechanical and electronic parts for the furniture industry. Over time, it began to design its own massage systems and patented several applications, ultimately providing its expertise to furniture manufacturers in the region as well as the beauty, health, and fitness industries. As Ciar’s size and revenue grew, Ciar discovered that the “free” OpenOffice.org not only failed to provide for its IT needs, but also resulted in huge support costs.

Situation
Integration Woes
When Ciar decided to switch from Microsoft to OpenOffice.org several years ago, the company was attracted to the perceived “convenience” and low cost of using OpenOffice.org.

The problems started piling up, and fast.

OpenOffice.org incorrectly opened Word documents and did not allow for editing of macros, said Eros Borgogelli, the Information Systems Coordinator at Ciar.

In addition, Excel documents were also incorrectly formatted in OpenOffice.org, making it impossible for Ciar’s employees to share diagrams and data accurately – a potentially costly and dangerous problem on the production line.

At the time, Ciar used Incredi Mail for 30 clients to make up for the fact that OpenOffice.org lacked an electronic mail client.

Borgogelli said, “However, we experienced a misalignment between Microsoft Outlook users and those working with Incredi Mail. And finally, the widespread use of Microsoft Access within the company was in no way supported by OpenOffice.org and Ciar eventually found itself in a position in which it couldn’t share files with its clients or the outside world in general.”

“Companies come to realize the real cost of using ‘Open’ software, requiring a meager initial investment, but over time proving to be definitely more costly in many respects. All that without providing good results.” Pierpaolo Manzini Marketing Director IT Consult, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner

“Free” At A Cost
Ciar chose OpenOffice.org for its IT needs thinking it could save money. At the time, Ciar was growing rapidly, hiring more employees and expanding into Asia. It wanted to increase productivity and free up resources for innovation.

However, OpenOffice.org proved inflexible and inadequate for Ciar’s needs. The cost of “free” quickly caught up with the company. Confusion in sharing documents and the lack of clear communication tools to the outside world resulted in an overall higher total cost of ownership with OpenOffice.org.

Ciar’s problems with integration and mail put it in a desperate need for an “evolved technological approach,” Borgogelli said.

Solution
Cost Savings
Ciar teamed up with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner IT Consult to make an evaluation of possible solutions, considering costs, benefits, and risks.

Ciar’s story is typical of many small and medium-sized businesses in Italy that started out as small family-run companies, but which developed their businesses so they required information tools to support their growing businesses, according to Pierpaolo Manzini, the marketing director at IT Consult.

Like Ciar, many of those companies tried the Open Source software-based solution for their IT needs, thinking they could save money. Instead, many found themselves facing additional costs and risks, and eventually turned to the stability and strength of Microsoft solutions.

“Companies come to realize the real cost of using ‘Open’ software, requiring a meager initial investment, but over time proving to be definitely more costly in many respects,” said Manzini. “All that without providing good results.”

A Smooth Migration
In Ciar’s case, it abandoned its Unix operating system and dumped OpenOffice.org. The company chose Microsoft® Office 2007 and Microsoft® SharePoint, migrating 107 work stations in all departments to the new platform.

Ciar needed strong collaborative tools for its employees, including manual workers who had to use computers to view graphs and diagrams to perform their tasks on the production line.

“Today, all of the company’s users work with Microsoft solutions, both as operating systems and as collaboration solutions,” said Borgogelli. “Collaboration for Ciar means that each and every employee has access to company information. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of Microsoft software.”

Benefits
Better Collaboration
An immediate benefit was the improvement in internal collaboration among employees and external communication with customers .

“People can exchange single documents that are valid for the entire company,” said Borgogelli. “With OpenOffice.org, on the other hand, there was from the very beginning total uncertainty about the formatting of documents and also about their inconsistency when shared outside our production group.”

“Moving to Microsoft Office System 2007 increased our employees’ productivity and performance levels...” Eros Borgogelli Information Systems Coordinator Ciar

“Microsoft solutions are all user-friendly and are familiar to our employees, who have them on their home computers. It became counter-productive to propose an environment other than Microsoft Office,” Borgogelli said.

“Moving to Microsoft Office System 2007 increased our employees’ productivity and performance levels, allowing them to concentrate on their primary work objectives within the company, due to the simple fact that they are working with tools that are already more familiar to them.”

Improved ROI
Ciar discovered what many are already finding out: That “free” OpenOffice.org is not so free after all, and certainly not good enough.

The cost of the migration to the Microsoft platform was absorbed in just one year thanks to the increase in user productivity and the loss of data inconsistencies, according to the company.

In addition, the company saved on support costs as the IT department was no longer deluged with requests to solve issues on the troublesome OpenOffice.org system.

Future-Ready Environment
For a fast-growing company such as Ciar, the Microsoft solution has proven to be a reliable and integrated IT experience, as well as a solid platform to build on.

In fact, the management is looking forward to implementing Business Intelligence and Performance Evaluation systems to measure company performance.

Manzini from IT Consult said, “Just think, via simple integrations, they will have access to performance information practically in real time, which is a tremendous added value for the company as a whole.”

Since the successful move to Office and SharePoint, Ciar is already thinking of adding Exchange to its Microsoft stack.

Borgogelli  said, “We’re counting on the fact that Microsoft’s platform will allow us to take this further step forward without having to purchase new software, simply by adding elements to what is already in place.”

For More Information

For 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 who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. 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 IT Consult products and services, call 390722332929 or visit the Web site at: www.itconsult.it

For more information about Ciar SPA products and services, call 390721200180 or visit the Web site at: www.ciar.it

Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office