Vancity Credit Union

Credit Union Optimizes Infrastructure to Gain Efficiency, Attain Carbon-Neutral Status

Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union, needed to increase efficiency. The credit union turned to technology to support its efforts and opted to standardize on Microsoft® technologies because of their usability and value. By upgrading its Microsoft license agreement to the Enterprise Client Access License Suite, Vancity obtained a business productivity infrastructure that provides collaboration and communication in a cost-effective manner. For instance, the credit union uses Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to share electronic documents, reducing paper consumption and making it easy for employees to quickly find the information that they need to serve members. Thanks to its efforts, Vancity can not only better contribute to its environmental sustainability goals, but it also has been able to offer more IT services without incurring additional costs.

 

Situation

Vancity Credit Union was founded in 1946 to provide financial services to people from all walks of life and has maintained an ongoing commitment to improving the quality of life in its community. Vancity customers, whom the credit union refers to as members, have numerous options when it comes to selecting a provider for their banking services. To remain competitive with large banks and other institutions that have more financial resources at their disposal, the credit union endeavors to deliver the same services with the highest level of customer service possible.

Vancity set out to establish a leading position in the industry by improving customer service and internal collaboration; promoting efficient, carbon-neutral practices; and streamlining its IT environment and management to be able to offer additional IT services.

Increased Responsiveness to Members Through Team Collaboration
A key objective for Vancity is to provide its employees with IT services and functionality that empower them to respond better to member requests. “We face the same challenges that banks everywhere must overcome,” says Tony Fernandes, Vice President, Technology Strategy for Inventure Solutions, which is the IT arm of the Vancity Group. “People are demanding more and better services than ever before. We continually upgrade our internal IT capabilities so that we can fulfill their experiences and expectations.”

Vancity also sought a better overall collaboration strategy and the tools to support and foster it among workers. The credit union’s previous environment provided limited capacity for collaboration. Employees used e-mail messages and public files to share information, but the files grew larger and often included multiple versions of the same documents. Vancity wanted to help its employees be more efficient by making it easier to find and share information, thus increasing the reuse of company knowledge and ensuring that people were basing their decisions on consistent, accurate information.

Sustainable Practices to Save the Environment and Save Workers’ Time
Vancity differentiates itself from the competition by connecting with members better through its community and environment programs. For instance, the company heavily promotes its sustainable practices, such as its encouragement of bicycle commuting for employees and its carbon-neutral initiatives. The organization considers its use of technology to be a significant contributor to its status as a leader in environmental practices. “We’re big believers in ‘Green IT,’” says Jesse Breaker, Director, Technology Infrastructure for Inventure Solutions.

Vancity saw several areas of opportunity for adopting IT solutions that could support environmental initiatives while also increasing efficiency and conserving financial resources. For example, the credit union wanted to find an alternative to its in-person training sessions, which it held at its training center and required employees to travel up to 100 kilometers to attend. “To make it worth the drive, we waited until we had a training agenda that required at least half a day or more, but that time spent away from the branch offices was a productivity drain,” says Breaker, “and it also meant a lot of extra cars on the road.”

Another way in which Vancity looked to conserve resources was by reducing the amount of paper that it used for its board meetings. “Our meetings used to necessitate reams and reams of paper printed with critical information and placed in binders that we handed out to all attendees,” says Breaker. “It was a considerable waste of paper because most of it was never used again.”

Simplified Infrastructure for Enhanced IT Services
To make it easier for employees to serve members, Vancity also wanted to simplify its IT environment. In 2000, the Vancity infrastructure included a Lotus mail system, Lotus desktop suite, Novell systems, Oracle systems, a few Microsoft® products, and other systems. Each was a point solution that had been implemented to meet separate needs over the years.

After looking at its heterogeneous IT environment and evaluating its options, Vancity chose to standardize on Microsoft technologies. “Over several years, we got rid of all the ‘noise’ and focused on making Microsoft technologies our core IT competency,” says Fernandes. “The Microsoft stack offered so much value and affordability that it’s now our policy to look first to Microsoft-based solutions to satisfy our business needs.”

Solution

Since its decision to standardize on Microsoft technologies, Vancity has embraced its standing as an IT leader in its industry and continues to use technology as a strategic asset to help the credit union gain efficiency and create competitive advantage.

Long-Term Commitment to Ongoing Infrastructure Optimization
To achieve its goals of using technology to get ahead and support environmental practices, Vancity began working with Microsoft in 2002 to put forth and carry out a continual optimization initiative for its business productivity infrastructure.

The Microsoft stack offered so much value and affordability that it’s now our policy to look first to Microsoft-based solutions to satisfy our business needs. Tony Fernandes Vice President, Technology Strategy, Inventure Solutions [IT arm of the Vancity Group]

The credit union determined that gradually adopting solutions from Microsoft would support those principles and that Microsoft’s long-term strategies for those solutions worked well with those of Vancity. Some of the products and technologies that the credit union deployed included the Active Directory® service, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, Group Policy Objects, Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003, Windows® Update Services, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

“Microsoft provided us with the tools we needed to manage our environment more efficiently and enhance the services that we deliver to our work force to make them happier, more capable, and more productive,” says Fernandes. “But beyond that, we also felt comfortable adopting the Microsoft stack because the company shared clear road maps as to where it was heading with its technologies.”

Since its decision to pursue a continual infrastructure optimization initiative, Vancity has been engaged in ongoing, long-term discussions with its Microsoft account team. Those discussions do not necessarily target individual products or technologies. Rather, they focus on larger ideas, such as how to manage the Vancity environment more easily and make changes more quickly.

“We continually work with Microsoft to evaluate where we are, where we’re going, and what we’re trying to accomplish with our business,” says Fernandes. “Our Microsoft team is proactive about coming to us with ideas, introducing us to relevant Microsoft and partner solutions that can have a positive impact on our particular business challenges, and maintaining good, healthy dialog.”

One of the ideas brought forward was to consolidate the credit union’s individual Microsoft technology investments under an Enterprise Agreement featuring the Microsoft Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL) Suite. Vancity determined that the ECAL Suite supported capabilities in which the company was interested, such as communication and collaboration, and provided a set of technologies that aligned directly with its infrastructure optimization requirements, such as the Microsoft Forefront® client security line of business security products.

The ECAL Suite also delivered cost-saving benefits, particularly as Vancity embraced more and more Microsoft solutions. “We’d already experienced the benefits of multiple Microsoft-based solutions, so when the ECAL became available, we got together with our Microsoft team and looked at where we saw the potential for more benefits,” says Fernandes. “Given where we’re trying to go and what we expect to accomplish over the next few years, it made great financial sense to move from a regular enterprise agreement to the ECAL.”

Business Productivity Infrastructure in Use
As part of its push to optimize its infrastructure and increase productivity, Vancity deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to support knowledge sharing among its work force. Responding to the new solution’s ease of use, employees enthusiastically adopted Office SharePoint Server 2007 to help them collaborate on temporary projects and long-term activities, minimizing their practice of using e-mail and public files to share large documents.

For example, Vancity ceased printing board meeting information for all employees, instead publishing it to a SharePoint site so that employees can download and read the material before a meeting. Employees then use their portable computers during meetings to follow along with electronic versions of the presentations.

In addition, the credit union improved its training procedures by taking advantage of the communications capabilities in Microsoft Office Live Meeting. Now that training sessions can take place virtually, employees are no longer required to leave their branch offices to visit the training center. Therefore, Vancity can offer shorter, more frequent training sessions than the minimum half-day sessions previously required to justify the travel time and productivity interruption.

“We’ve been able to evolve toward a just-in-time training model,” says Fernandes. For instance, if the credit union is about to roll out an upgrade to one of its software systems, trainers schedule a half-hour Office Live Meeting session to introduce applicable users to the new or different features. And because trainers can record their sessions and make them available on a SharePoint site, employees can watch them from their offices or homes at the most convenient time. Continues Fernandes, “There’s a definite customer service impact now that our people no longer have to be gone for half a day or more at a time.”

The organization also adopted Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, which provides presence functionality that has helped the credit union extend its resources through real-time communications. For example, Vancity operates an insurance company that has a large member base and approximately 100 other employees, many of whom are stationed in the credit union’s branch offices. The insurance company also has a call center staffed by five people who take incoming calls from members and respond to their needs.

Previously, members and potential members had to wait in a phone queue for a call-center agent to be available. If the agent could not answer the member’s question, that agent had to reach out to colleagues at random throughout the branches to determine the answer, which meant either placing the member on hold or hanging up and calling back later.

Vancity deployed presence capabilities to its full roster of insurance employees. Now agents can quickly check employees’ presence icons to see who might be available in which branch to either take an incoming call when the five call-center agents are busy or provide specific help to a member with a question that the agent cannot answer.

Benefits

Vancity is taking advantage of infrastructure optimization and the use of technology solutions to enhance its communications and collaboration capabilities and thereby improve efficiency and customer service. “From an IT perspective, we’ve been able to drive down costs, boost efficiency, provide a more stable and available environment to our internal customers, and give them tools that help them think about approaching tasks in a different way to perform better,” says Fernandes. “All of this contributes to improved service to members and overall efficiency.”

More Effective Collaboration
Having given its work force tools to make it easier to both find and share information throughout the organization, Vancity is experiencing the benefits of increased knowledge sharing and productivity. “We had had SharePoint Portal Server 2003 in place, but the great collaboration capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the ease with which users can set up and manage SharePoint sites resulted in an explosion of use at Vancity,” says Denise Lau, Product Manager for Inventure Solutions. “We had a total of 13 sites with the previous product, but already we have nearly 50 top-level sites with the new version, plus hundreds of lower-level sites. We’ve empowered our users while still maintaining IT control.”

Employees can get more work done in less time because they no longer have to hunt through file shares and mailboxes to find what they need or compare multiple versions of the same document. Continues Lau, “We’re able to fine-tune the relevance of search results, and employees can search across content from all team sites—both of which help employees make the most of Vancity knowledge assets and respond to colleagues and members with better, more accurate information.”

Improved Service to Members
All the new efficiencies that Vancity has implemented contribute to better service to members. Employees spend less time away from the office for training, so they’re more available to handle member issues. They also have tools that help them be more responsive to members.

Presence functionality has improved the speed at which members receive answers to their inquiries. “Presence effectively extended the five-person call center into a 105-person operation, thus ensuring that we’re delivering faster, better service than before,” says Fernandes. “It’s triggered a leap in productivity and a significant improvement in our members’ experience.”

Greater Environmental Conservation
By relying on technology to reduce paper consumption and physical travel, Vancity is living up to its environmentally responsible image. Its internal training department, for example, delivered approximately 290 training courses to staff during the credit union’s pilot program for Office Live Meeting, saving staff from traveling more than 139,000 kilometers to attend training sessions. The company calculates an annual cost avoidance figure of approximately U.S.$145,000 in staff time and expensed mileage due to the use of Office Live Meeting. Additionally, Vancity has reduced the amount of paper consumed per employee by 30 percent, in part by using electronic communication.

These and other technology-supported sustainability programs at the credit union helped Vancity achieve its goal of becoming the first North America–based financial institution to be carbon neutral,  which means that the carbon dioxide emissions that Vancity creates are now equal to the emissions it has offset elsewhere.

Enhanced IT Efficiency
As Vancity continues its infrastructure optimization efforts, the credit union’s IT department is finding it easier to manage and maintain its environment. In 2000, when Vancity decided to migrate its desktop productivity suite, the process took approximately 400 hours. Several years later, after optimizing its infrastructure to include Active Directory and a strong Group Policy Object infrastructure, Vancity was able to upgrade everyone in its work force to Microsoft Office 2003 within a single weekend. “We had what we needed in place, and we automated the entire upgrade, so no one had to drive around to visit all 57 branches,” says Breaker. “It was a real success story.”

By adopting Microsoft technologies, we’ve actually been able to reduce the number of people supporting our environment, even as we’re doubling our number of devices. Jesse Breaker Director, Technology Infrastructure, Inventure Solutions [IT arm of the Vancity Group]

The credit union also has been able to grow without adding to the size of its IT support staff. In 2005, Vancity had one support staff person per 306 devices; now, in 2008, each support person cares for 455 devices. “The introduction of our continuous improvement program for our infrastructure resulted in a huge lift in our ability to do more with less,” says Breaker. “By adopting Microsoft technologies, we’ve actually been able to reduce the number of people supporting our environment, even as we’re doubling our number of devices.”

Not only can the IT staff support more devices, but it also can resolve IT issues more quickly for its employees because of its optimized infrastructure. The organization uses Office Live Meeting to work with users who call the help desk seeking assistance. Rather than traveling to the users’ locations, as help-desk staff formerly did, Vancity now initiates Office Live Meeting sessions and works with users right on their desktops to answer their questions and show them how to use products properly. “We’re serving our internal customers a lot more quickly than we used to,” says Lau.

More IT Services to Offer for the Same Cost
Overall, Vancity has been able to increase the number of IT services that it offers while maintaining similar costs. “Infrastructure optimization at Vancity has been an evolutionary process during which we’ve gradually implemented solutions that add value through efficiency,” explains Breaker. “The ECAL introduced us to even more solutions that really support where we want to go, particularly our efforts to move toward a more Web-based environment.”

Adds Fernandes, “The cost of adding so much functionality was prohibitive with other vendors—we couldn’t even entertain the thought. But we’ve gone from thinking of Microsoft as a departmental solutions player to considering Microsoft an enterprise solutions partner, one that makes functionality affordable for us.”

Better Vendor Support
For Vancity, its consolidation efforts are about more than cost savings. Previously, with its hybrid environment, Vancity often had difficulty locating the source of a particular IT issue and solving it. Says Breaker, “It was hard to determine who to talk to and how to get help, particularly if the problem required getting multiple vendors to work together.”

Continues Breaker, “Today, we’re able to fix most issues ourselves because the standard operating environment we use is Microsoft based. And for any issue that we are unable to resolve, we can contact Microsoft Premier Support Services and work with an engineer.

“Microsoft also can provide additional resources to work on a problem, depending on the business impact. It’s a truly 180-degree turnaround in our experience. We save time, grief, and quite a bit of money by having an optimized infrastructure and ready support.”

Foundation for Added Value
Vancity has embraced business productivity infrastructure optimization as an ongoing initiative, so the credit union has big plans to extend its collaboration environment for even greater efficiencies. For example, Vancity is in the planning process of migrating its intranet to a solution based on Office SharePoint Server 2007. Says Fernandes, “We’re creating new opportunities to connect more functionality to our intranet by taking advantage of Office SharePoint Server 2007 so that the intranet extends beyond ‘brochureware’ and becomes an active part of our service delivery.”

Continues Fernandes, “Our longer-term goal with Office SharePoint Server 2007 is to replace the many screens that employees must continually jump between with one Web-enabled portal to make employees’ lives easier, simplify their user experience, and reduce the potential for mistakes. This also will contribute to better service for Vancity members.”
 
Microsoft Optimization
With Optimization, you can build a secure, well-managed, and dynamic core IT infrastructure that can reduce overall IT costs, make better use of resources, and become a strategic asset for the business. The Microsoft Optimization model—with basic, standardized, rationalized, and dynamic levels—was developed by Microsoft using industry best practices and Microsoft’s own experiences with enterprise customers. The Optimization model provides a maturity framework that is flexible and easily used as a benchmark for technical capability and business value.

For more information about the Microsoft Optimization model, go to:
www.microsoft.com/optimization

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 Vancity products and services, call (604) 877-7000, or visit the Web site at:
www.vancity.com