4-page Case Study - Posted 6/3/2008
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Consumer Goods Company Cuts Costs, Boosts Efficiency with Unified Communications
Situation
Marico is a leading Indian Group in Consumer Products and Services in the Global Beauty and Wellness space. It markets well known brands such as Parachute, Saffola, Sweekar, Hair and Care, Nihar, Shanti, Mediker, Revive, Manjal, Kaya, Sundari, Aromatic, Fiancee and HairCode. Marico’s brands and their extensions occupy leadership positions with significant market shares in most categories - coconut oil, hair oils, post wash hair care, anti-lice treatment, premium refined edible oils, niche fabric care etc. Marico is present in the skin care solutions segment through Kaya Skin Clinics (48 in India and the Middle East), the Sundari range of Spa skin care products (in the USA and other countries) and its soap franchise (in India and Bangladesh). In India, Marico is headquartered in Mumbai.
As of today, Marico operates in consumer products, aesthetic services, and global ayurvedic business. Marico's own manufacturing facilities are located at Goa, Kanjikode, Jalgaon, Saswad, Pondicherry, Dehradun and Daman supported by subcontracting units.
Marico’s focus on sustainable profitable growth is manifest through its consistent financial performance – a CAGR of 19 percent in revenues and 19 percent in profits over the past 5 years, while setting a record of several consecutive quarters of year on year growth is 31 percent on profits and 27 percent for sales and distributing dividends for 26 consecutive quarters.
Being a fast growing company with a vast network, Marico wanted to enable better communication and collaboration among its employees. The company wanted to reduce the time and cost on traveling of their employees for meetings and reviews. Also, most of the services available to the company’s employees were hosted, hence with the pay per use model, cost was a major constraint. The company wanted an integrated solution that would provide unified messaging and communication.
"The new solution enabled communication and collaboration with vendors and partners, thus achieving faster time-to-market for the company’s products and services." Vinod Kamath Chief Finance and Information Technology, Marico Limited.
Solution
After looking at several messaging environments such as Skype, GTalk and Yahoo messenger, Marico chose to implement Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 because it met all the specific communication needs of the company. Marico partnered with Microsoft® Consulting Services (MCS) for implementing the new solution.
“We selected Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 for presence, instant messaging, and Web conferencing,” says Bhagwant Pai – IT Infrastructure Manager, Marico Limited. “This will further increase productivity, improve information sharing, and simplify IT management.”
Office Communications Server 2007 incorporates software powered voice over IP (VoIP), so users can make, receive, and manage phone calls using Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 running on their computers. It also offers improvements to instant messaging and presence, and it provides an on-premise version of Microsoft Office Live Meeting for Web conferencing.
The new solution delivered the infrastructure capabilities that support collaboration across offices in India. It supports the following means of communication and collaboration:
• Enterprise wide communication and collaboration platform
• Group IM
• Support for multi party communication
• Archival of communication
Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 provided rich presence and instant messaging services to enhance collaboration. The project consisted of three phases, solution architecture, testing, and rollout. Solution architecture took 5 days (it started on 23rd April, 2007 and was completed on 27th April, 2007). The testing phase was started on 23rd April, 2007 and ended on 17th May, 2007. Production rollout was done from 20th May, 2007 to 5th June, 2007.
“The new solution provided Marico with a competitive advantage by providing messaging tools that enable communication across multiple vendors / partners / offices and locations,” says Vinod Kamath, Chief Finance and IT, Marico Limited.
The OCS server was implemented in the Datacenter at the main office at Rang Sharda in Bandra Reclamation. Chat, Presence awareness, and Audio and Video conferencing were the modules implemented.
Benefits
By deploying a unified communications solution, Marico expects to improve productivity through easy access to information and collaboration tools.
Enhanced Productivity
The range of communications options provided by Office Communications Server 2007, will give the mobile work force at Marico powerful new tools to make their time on the road more productive. “With Office Communications Server 2007, we will gain presence awareness. Employees can see the availability of their colleagues and how best to contact them whether by using phone, email message, instant messaging, or video conferencing,” says Girish Rao, Head IT Solutions Marico Limited. “This will improve services through employees working as productively as possible.”
Improved Information Sharing
Office Communications Server 2007 will make it possible for Marico employees to collaborate more easily and through more modes of communication. Employees can use features such as conferencing and instant messaging from inside the Microsoft Office applications they work with every day, such as Microsoft Office Word and Office Excel spreadsheet software. “Improved collaboration will help our employees to stay informed, and foster new ideas,” says Bhagwant Pai, IT Infrastructure Manager, Marico Limited.
Reduced Travel Costs
By using Office Communication Server 2007, Marico has reduced travel costs for its engineers and IT personnel. With Office Communications Server 2007, IT professionals can use presence to find out who might be available to help and make contact with that person instantly.
About Microsoft Services
Microsoft Services is the consulting, technical support, and customer service arm of the world’s leading Software Company. The organization helps customers and partners discover and implement high value Microsoft solutions that generate rapid, meaningful, and measurable results.
With its global partner network and support infrastructure, Microsoft Services enables the successful adoption, deployment, and use of Microsoft solutions and technologies for all customers, from the individual to the enterprise. Microsoft Services is designed to provide the right scope of services at the right time, including localized support solutions for businesses and consumers around the world.
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
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 Marico Limited products and services, call (91) (22) 6648 0480 or visit the Web site at: www.maricoindia.com
