4-page Case Study - Posted 3/7/2007

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Ski Bromont

Ski Resort Gains IT Visibility and Cuts Service Times by Tracking its Software Assets

Over the past five years, Ski Bromont, a four-season activity resort in Quebec, Canada, has enjoyed tremendous growth. But while employees easily managed the upswing in sales, its sales kiosks and online sales channel couldn’t cope with the volume of transactions. System crashes during the holiday season took a toll on sales and customer confidence. Ski Bromont turned to Microsoft® Certified Gold Partner Conamex to upgrade its IT environment. Before moving ahead, Conamex implemented a Software Asset Management (SAM) plan to evaluate the IT environment. Through SAM, Ski Bromont gained a clearer picture of its IT environment, helping it make informed decisions about future software investments. Ski Bromont was also able to establish clear guidelines around IT use for employees, ensure all of its software was compliant, virtually eliminate downtime and reduce IT service hours by 50 per cent.

Situation

Ski Bromont is a four-season resort in Bromont, Quebec, located just 45 minutes outside of Montreal. Over the past five years, the tourist destination has enjoyed a tremendous surge in growth – but it hasn’t always been easy. In the 1990’s the company suffered a series of rough seasons, which almost put the resort out of business. However, Ski Bromont re-emerged in 1999 after investing $26 million to revitalize operations. The resort now has 104 trails on seven hillsides and has more than a million visitors each year to its ski hills, mountain bike trails and water parks.

Technology played a key role in reviving the tourist destination. To encourage more season pass sales, Ski Bromont made them easier to buy by selling them through its web site and numerous kiosks located at the resort. The strategy worked; in 2003, membership numbers climbed from 3,000 to over 27,000. Today, the resort boasts close to 47,000 members, which does not include the growing number of water park and bike trail visitors. 

While staff skillfully handled the sudden surge in visitors, the Novell-based IT environment wasn’t as prepared. Due to the volume of sales during holiday season, the web site and kiosks went down for days at a time. When these systems crashed, employees had to process transactions by hand, which was cumbersome and slow. Administrators also had no way to quickly and accurately gauge sales volumes. The resort not only lost ticket sales, but customer confidence as well. The company soon realized positive customer engagement needed to extend beyond the slopes.

“Our members need to be able to purchase tickets at our ticket booths at any time, without experiencing technical difficulties,” says Guy Granger, Vice President, Finance, Ski Bromont. “Before this could happen, we needed to improve the reliability, security, scalability and performance of our IT environment.”

Solution

In 2005, Ski Bromont turned to award-winning Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Conamex International to replace its Novell-based IT environment with Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Windows Server® 2003, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 and ISA Server 2004. 

Before making such a significant investment in upgrading the IT environment, it was absolutely critical to get Software Asset Management in place before moving ahead.  Jean Leblanc Technical Evangelist Conamex International

Before starting the migration, Conamex implemented a Software Asset Management (SAM) program to gain a clearer picture of the company’s IT assets. SAM is a set of guidelines, procedures and tools designed to help organizations realize greater value from their IT infrastructure.

Previously, IT license management was not centralized at the resort, so Conamex employees went from station to station to create an inventory of all the software and hardware assets, and gathered licensing documentation. Next, Conamex matched the licenses to the software and reviewed the overall IT infrastructure. It quickly discovered the previous IT service provider had not kept records for asset tracking and failed to complete all the software licensing transfers, which made it hard to separate legitimate software assets from the rest.

“Before making such a significant investment in upgrading the IT environment, it was absolutely critical to get a Software Asset Management system in place before moving ahead,” says Jean Leblanc, Technical Evangelist, Conamex International. “Without knowing what IT assets existed, the resort had no way to accurately project what it needed.” 

In addition, Conamex surveyed different departments on their IT needs, giving employees the opportunity to recommend tools that would help improve productivity. Involving employees in the SAM process encouraged them to take ownership of the new solution and see it through to success.

Staff also needed training on the pitfalls of piracy. Since Ski Bromont had no formal IT policies or procedures in place, staff regularly installed software from home or downloaded it from the Internet onto their work computers putting the company at risk for compliance violations, integration headaches and Internet-based attacks.

“We found every flavour of Microsoft Office, along with software programs we didn’t recognize,” adds Leblanc.

To address this, employees at all levels received a SAM primer along with courses on the IT applications they used day-to-day. Conamex also created clear IT policies and procedures to ensure employees had guidelines around IT use and minimize training for new hires. At the close of the SAM process, Ski Bromont had a clean slate from which to rebuild its IT infrastructure.

Benefits

By putting a centralized SAM system in place, Ski Bromont now has a clear picture of its IT assets, which will help it make informed decisions about investing in IT, now and in the future.

Uptime, All the Time

In the past, Ski Bromont suffered frequent interruptions in service during the busiest time of the year risking client satisfaction and sales. By implementing the SAM program, Ski Bromont was able to weed out illegitimate software that caused the issues and upgrade its IT environment. Since the upgrade, unexplained service disruptions are no longer an issue and Ski Bromont was able to virtually eliminate downtime. 

“Since the server no longer breaks down, we operate at a higher operational efficiency level but require much less IT support,” says Granger.

Secure and Compliant

Previously, Ski Bromont did not have any IT regulations to guide employees on software use. The resort now has a clear set of policies and procedures around IT along with a full inventory of all software and hardware assets. This helped the company regain control over the software products installed on its machines, and keep online threats at bay.

“With SAM in place, we are confident all of our software is compliant,” says Granger. “Our staff is now trained on responsible computing, and they fully understand why we established safeguards to prevent them from violating compliance regulations unknowingly.”

More Efficient IT Operations

During the IT audit, Conamex uncovered software that no one used and versions that served no purpose. The SAM program enabled Ski Bromont to eliminate redundant IT assets and develop a standard software purchasing process to prevent licensing overlap. Now, the company has a clear picture of its IT investment and a measurable point from which to gauge future software purchases.

“With Licensing Microsoft Operations Manager, we clearly see which licenses we’re using and which ones are ‘parked’. This visibility has helped us take advantage of volume licensing discounts,” says Granger. 

With only a single platform to support, Ski Bromont also has found it much easier to maintain software assets. In fact, since standardizing on Microsoft, IT service hours have fallen by 50 per cent. Training costs have also decreased since employees no longer need to learn multiple platforms.

Better Disaster Protection

During the Microsoft migration, Conamex asked Ski Bromont about disaster recovery planning. While the resort recognized the importance of business continuity measures, it had nothing in place to protect its IT investment. By establishing the SAM system at Ski Bromont, Conamex set the stage for an evolving disaster recovery plan. The IT service provider was able to establish back-up storage for all IT assets, and restrict access to Conamex and certain key staff at Ski Bromont. With business continuity measures well underway, Ski Bromont can look forward to a faster return to normal operations in the case of an unfortunate event.

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:
http://www.microsoft.com/

For more information about Conamex International products and services, call (514) 381-1900 or visit their web site at:
http://www.conamex.com/

For more information about Ski Bromont products and services, call (450) 534-2200 or visit the web site at:
http://www.skibromont.com/

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Example: Active Directory, Windows, the Windows logo, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Document published November 2006