2 page Case Study - Posted 1/23/2007

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NIIT Limited

Global Training Pioneer Improves Efficiency and Productivity with New IT Environment

NIIT, a leading provider of IT education in the developing world, was facing growing pains in its IT infrastructure and document management processes. The company needed to raise employee efficiency and productivity while ensuring a secure environment. NIIT is deploying the Windows Vista™ operating system and 2007 Microsoft® Office system, and is seeing significant enhancements in search capabilities, team collaboration, and IT security.

Business Needs

For 25 years, NIIT has been a pioneer in the education industry. Founded in 1981 as one of the first IT training companies in Asia, NIIT saw early opportunities for broadening the IT skills of the general population in developing countries. Headquartered in Gurgaon, India, the company is now the largest training organization in Asia, operating 3,300 centers in 38 countries and training more

With the new integrated search capability in Windows Vista, [our employees] are able to instantaneously search through hundreds of e-mails and documents to get the information they want. That saves them several minutes on each search they perform. Udai Singh Executive Vice President, NIIT

NIIT has maintained a strong growth trajectory throughout its history, expanding through the addition of new education centers and acquisition of complementary companies. The company has achieved revenue growth of 20 to 30 percent for the last three years. Says Udai Singh, Executive Vice President of NIIT, “Our mission is to provide leadership in IT education. We’re already the leading training company in Asia, and our goal is to be the number-one education company in the world.”

While NIIT’s growth has strengthened its global brand and service offerings, it also resulted in a fragmented IT environment, with the company’s 6,000 computers running a variety of operating systems and productivity applications. To improve efficiency and productivity, NIIT recently completed an IT infrastructure initiative to standardize employees’ desktop software environments on Microsoft® technology, primarily using the Windows® XP Service Pack 2 operating system and Microsoft Office 2003 productivity software.

With its IT infrastructure rationalization complete, NIIT began to search for innovative ways to boost employee productivity. “From managing large volumes of data to streamlining the production of documents, we have been too reliant on e-mail and manual processes. We know we have huge opportunities to improve efficiency; we just need the right tools,” says Pankaj Dikshit, Deputy General Manager in the Global Design and Delivery Group at NIIT.

Solution

With its commitment to IT innovation in mind, NIIT recently decided to implement a new desktop infrastructure designed to help employees increase productivity, improve collaboration, and enhance mobile connectivity. To achieve this goal, NIIT joined the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for the Windows Vista™ operating system and 2007 Microsoft Office system. “Upgrading to Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 was an opportunity to prepare the company for the next wave of productivity and mobility,” says Dikshit. “Our employees need to be able to be connected at all times, and we want to provide them with an easy-to-use environment in order to maximize efficiency.”

After completing application compatibility testing and a small pilot deployment, NIIT installed Windows Vista and the 2007 Office software on 100 workstations in its corporate office. NIIT performed an “on-the-fly” remote deployment using Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (BDD) and Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS).

In addition to deploying Windows Vista, NIIT is using virtual document workspaces built with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to streamline team collaboration for production of documents such as marketing brochures and educational materials.

Benefits

Despite the early stage of the project, NIIT is already noticing substantial advantages from its deployment of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Finding and Using Business Information

The enhanced desktop search capabilities in the Windows Vista operating system are making dramatic improvements in the way NIIT employees find and use information. Says Singh, “We have received an incredible response to Windows Vista from end users. Members of our commercial team, which deals with procurement, used to spend a long time searching for information each day. With the integrated search capability, they are able to instantaneously search through hundreds of e-mails and documents to get the information they want. That saves them several minutes on each search they perform.”

Improving Collaboration

NIIT’s new portals based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 are providing new opportunities to save time and reduce costs. Dikshit explains: “Production of documents—educational materials, marketing brochures, human-resources documents—is a big part of our business. There is a workflow process to incorporate input from multiple departments on all of these documents. Before using Office SharePoint Server, we had to e-mail documents sequentially between departments. The process was time-consuming, it generated lots of server traffic, and it was prone to version-control problems. The new portal based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 allows all parties to modify the document simultaneously. As a result, a task that used to take two weeks can now be completed in three or four days, while eliminating the cost of all that e-mail traffic. Plus, we can control document proliferation and reduce multiple document versions.”

Tightening Security

As NIIT continues to deploy its new IT infrastructure across the organization, it is planning to take advantage of the security features of the Windows Vista operating system. Says Dikshit, “We have had problems in the past with users running malicious software on their machines by accident, which caused security problems as well as productivity losses. By using the User Account Control features in Windows Vista, administrators can restrict downloads while still allowing business-critical applications to run, providing important security safeguards and boosting the productivity of professional staff and the help desk.”

Simplifying Deployment

NIIT is anticipating an efficient organizationwide deployment of Windows Vista. Says Singh, “We are amazed at how the new deployment tools available with Windows Vista have simplified software deployment. Using the new BDD toolkit, we automatically deployed 100 new machines in less than two hours.”