4-page Case Study - Posted 10/3/2007
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Leading Animal Health Biotech Company Improves Global Employee Collaboration
Alltech is one of the leading animal health companies in the world, specializing in improving health and performance by adding nutritional value to animal healthcare products. It has 1,800 employees and is headquartered in Nicholasville, Kentucky. Alltech wanted an alternative to e-mail and the telephone to improve global collaboration for its employees in 83 countries. It especially wanted to improve collaboration and problem solving among employees working in different time zones and speaking various languages. The company deployed Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. The solution integrates presence, IM, VoIP, and on-premise conferencing technology. Alltech is experiencing greatly improved collaboration, faster problem resolution, and faster and easier conferencing. And federation could aid in enhancing inter-company collaboration.
Situation
Alltech is one of the fastest-growing feed ingredient suppliers in the world. Since 1980, the company has been creating animal health care products that are natural and friendly to the animal, the consumer, and the environment. Some of its products include yeast cultures and extracts, enzymes, organic minerals, biologically active proteins, flavors, and direct-fed microbials. Headquartered in Nicholasville, Kentucky, Alltech has a bioscience center in Ireland, and a strong regional presence in North America, Europe, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. The company has 1,800 employees.
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Office Communications Server 2007 IM and presence are helping Alltech support to resolve IT problems much more quickly—particularly where employees speak different languages.  |
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Jerry Mudd
Global Technology Operations ManagerAlltech
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In January 2007, after migrating from IBM Lotus Notes business e-mail software to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 e-mail messaging and collaboration software, Alltech was eager to achieve the key strategic goals of improving global collaboration and communication among Alltech employees. With colleagues in different time zones, and speaking various languages, the company found that e-mail and the telephone had limitations. Jerry Mudd, Global Technology Operations Manager at Alltech, explains, “Our employees are spread over 83 countries and speak many different languages. When someone has an IT issue that can’t be resolved by their regional support representative, the next step is to contact our 24/7 IT support team in Kentucky. But many people—understandably so—would prefer to write an e-mail message rather than pick up the phone and describe an IT problem in a language they’re not totally fluent in.” Mudd adds, “Cross-cultural telephone conversations can be challenging for Alltech IT support as well.”
As a result, many employees use e-mail to contact support. “But the problem with e-mail is that it takes a long time to get to the bottom of something. Sometimes the e-mail doesn’t contain enough information to troubleshoot the issue. And by the time we get all the information we need to solve the problem—with different working hours and time zones—it can be several hours or days of e-mail later.”
To help facilitate global communication and collaboration, the company wanted a secure enterprisewide instant messaging (IM) solution. It also wanted the solution to be integrated with its other applications—including Microsoft Office 2003, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007—while being easy to support. “It was very difficult finding support for Lotus Notes Sametime Server—especially here in Kentucky, where the ratio of Microsoft support experts to ones for Lotus Notes is about 100 to 1,” says Mudd. The company had been paying a significant amount of money maintaining two separate systems, including providing training for all new employees on both systems.
The company was eager for a secure enterprisewide IM solution that would be well-integrated with its applications and systems, cost-effective, and easy to support.
Solution
In October 2006, after starting the migration from Lotus Notes to Exchange Server, Alltech deployed Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 to 300 employees. The solution gave Alltech encrypted and authenticated instant messaging, and it let users see colleagues’ presence information. With presence, employees can instantly see who is available and how best to contact them from within any Microsoft Office application.
“With Live Communications Server 2005, we saw a significant enough improvement in communications that we wanted to expand on it and roll out the next version to the entire company,” says Mudd.
In May 2007, Alltech and technology partner KiZAN began a test deployment of the next version of the solution, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. KiZAN, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, had helped Alltech with its Lotus Notes to Exchange Server migration, and with its Live Communications Server 2005 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 implementations. Office Communications Server 2007 builds on the foundation of presence and IM delivered by Live Communications Server 2005. Key new features include enhanced IM and presence capabilities, integrated voice over IP (VoIP), enhanced on-site conferencing (audio, video, and Web), and the ability for companies to federate and thereby use the solution for secure inter-company communications.
“Our proof of concept was really focused on making sure that we could easily and securely use the voice and video features of Office Communicator 2007 in our network environment, because we knew IM and presence worked already,” says Mudd. With Office Communications Server 2007 software-powered VoIP, users can make, receive, and manage voice calls from their computers using Office Communicator 2007. Users can escalate an instant message to a voice call, or a call to a video conference, with a single click.
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We can delve into the issue right there from Office Communications Server 2007 IM—we can access a person’s desktop, an application, exchange a screen shot, a file, we can do a lot right from the IM. |
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Jerry Mudd
Global Technology Operations Manager
Alltech |
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“We completed the proof of concept in June 2007, and then rolled out the solution to 1,800 users in 83 countries,” says Roger Kobel, President of KiZAN. “We have successfully migrated to the release version of Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition and hope to have all users running the release client by the end of Q4 2007.”
Benefits
Alltech IT employees are experiencing faster progress on IT issues, especially when there is any sort of language differential between the two parties communicating. Using Office Communications Server 2007, the support team can troubleshoot issues interactively—for example, with application sharing—and respond to customers more quickly. Employees are able to initiate conferences significantly faster than with the company’s previous solution. And Alltech sees the potential for federation to strengthen communication and partnerships with research and technology partners.
Greatly Enhanced Collaboration and Faster Problem Resolution
The solution is helping Alltech employees to bridge language barriers and find faster resolutions to IT issues. “Office Communications Server 2007 IM and presence are helping Alltech support to resolve IT problems much more quickly—particularly where employees speak different languages,” says Mudd.
With real-time IM conversations, employees usually have an answer to their concern within minutes, rather than hours, or days. This is in part, says Mudd, because “we can delve into the issue right from Office Communications Server 2007 IM—we can access a person’s desktop, an application, exchange a screen shot, a file—right there from the IM. This translates into faster resolution and ultimately a happier user experience.”
Alltech product champions in disparate locations are also benefiting from using IM and presence. “Our product champions include researchers, salespeople, and marketing staff who promote and support our products in the market. By setting up groups in Office Communicator 2007, these team members can collaborate on a daily basis, with minimal effort to establish contact,” says Mudd. "Presence allows salespeople with a question from a customer to see if the team is online, and field the question in real time.”
Faster and Easier Conferencing
Because people can quickly enter into a multiperson audio or video conference, employees are saving a lot of the time that they used to spend accessing the Lotus Notes Sametime Server conferencing Web site, logging in, providing a user name and password, and so on. “Conferencing is ten times faster than with our previous solution. With Office Communications Server 2007 there’s no waiting, no Web site, no passwords—just click and you’re in,” says Mudd.
Improved Inter-Company Collaboration with Federation
The company has begun looking at possibly federating Office Communications Server 2007 with technology partners like KiZAN. “As more companies adopt Office Communications Server 2007, federating with research partners and universities could be a key way to strengthen our relationships and leadership position,” says Mudd.
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 KiZAN Technologies products and services, call 888-327-0333 or visit the Web site at:
www.kizan.com
For more information about Alltech Biotech products and services, call 888-327-0333 or visit the Web site at:
www.alltech.com
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
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2007
