GSD&M Idea City

Ad Agency Saves Hundreds of Hours Weekly with Integrated Collaboration Solution

For 36 years, GSD&M Idea City has delivered visionary solutions to its clients, including AT&T, BMW, Southwest Airlines, and the U.S. Air Force. The company’s business strategy centers on extensive sharing of innovative ideas to solve advertising and marketing problems and create new market opportunities. To best support its collaborative environment, GSD&M Idea City built an IT infrastructure based on the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. With its new software—including Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, plus Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—employees are able to communicate and collaborate more easily, can work more efficiently, and are saving hundreds of hours each week through easier access to business-critical information.

 

Situation

“Don’t Mess with Texas.” This well-known advertising slogan for a campaign to reduce littering on Texas roadways is the work of GSD&M Idea City, a marketing communications and advertising company founded in 1971 by several graduates of the University of Texas at Austin. GSD&M Idea City has, through its creative advertising strategies, helped to propel the success of many notable businesses, including AT&T, BMW, Southwest Airlines, and the U.S. Air Force. GSD&M Idea City is a subsidiary of the Omnicom Group.

At the heart of GSD&M Idea City’s business strategy is a concept the company calls Dynamic Collaboration, a method of close collaboration among employees, clients, vendors, and industry experts that leads to the development of advertising programs that create positive results for the company’s clients.

To support this collaboration, GSD&M Idea City needed the ability to quickly find and share information, but the company’s previous intranet, a custom-developed solution based on Microsoft® ASP.NET technology, lacked comprehensive search functionality. Coan Dillahunty, Director of Enterprise Systems at GSD&M Idea City, says, “To locate a document, we used to have to find the owner of the document first. We needed a more sensible way to find information.”

The IT department also wanted to provide easier access to information for remote users. Many of the company’s employees spend a great deal of time traveling to and from client sites and working from client offices. “We didn’t want them to be bound to the corporate network to access information,” says Jerry Rios, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at GSD&M Idea City. “We needed to prevent information from being locked up in silos and e-mail inboxes. That is, we needed the ability to share and act on information in a collaborative fashion.”

Finally, GSD&M Idea City wanted the ability to integrate its intranet with instant messaging and its desktop software programs to streamline work processes and boost collaboration. This was not possible with its previous intranet and its suite of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 programs. The company felt that there was still room to improve its collaboration environment, and in order to do so, it needed to find a more robust intranet solution.

Solution

In early 2007, GSD&M Idea City transitioned its custom-developed intranet to one based on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to make it easier for employees to collaborate and find information. To further extend its collaboration environment, GSD&M Idea City also deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for e-mail and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 for instant messaging and integrated presence awareness.

Our new infrastructure, based on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, goes hand in hand with our culture that’s based on innovation and collaboration and making a difference for our clients. Jerry Rios Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, GSD&M Idea City

Shortly after the deployment of its new collaboration and communications infrastructure, GSD&M Idea City began to explore the features and capabilities of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007. Rios says, “We saw many areas in which the 2007 Microsoft Office release would integrate nicely with our new intranet.” The company found the integration of the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client with Office SharePoint Server 2007 an especially compelling reason to deploy the 2007 Office system.

Within the company’s IT department, a group of approximately 15 employees, including the help-desk staff, experimented with a trial version of Office Professional Plus 2007. They found the Microsoft Office Fluent™ user interface to be “more intuitive,” which led the department to believe that, with proper training on the redesigned user interface, employees would call the help desk less often and would have an easier time finding underused features.

In February 2007, GSD&M Idea City decided to upgrade the entire company, in a phased approach, from Office Professional Edition 2003 to Office Professional Plus 2007. The company also decided to upgrade from Office Live Communications Server 2005 to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and to deliver the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 unified communications client, a program included with Office Professional Plus 2007, to its employees.

Prior to the upgrade, the IT department conducted a brief pilot of the newer software with the company’s Support Council, a group of administrative assistants responsible for a variety of office operations, from booking conference rooms to ordering supplies to managing executive calendars. “The Support Council is a vocal group of users, and they have a good relationship with the help desk,” says Dillahunty. “We hoped that training them first would uncover issues we might encounter later in the deployment, and it did help us to anticipate some questions users had about the location of functions in the new versions. For the most part though, it validated our assumptions that users would find the new products intuitive and easy to use.” 

After this brief and successful pilot, the IT department deployed the software companywide. To reap the greatest return from its new software investment, GSD&M Idea City combined the upgrade with mandatory training sessions. During previous Microsoft Office deployments, the lack of consolidated, comprehensive training for users resulted in the company not capitalizing on all of the software’s advanced capabilities. Dillahunty says, “Not providing immediate and comprehensive training to users was a mistake. There were a lot of Microsoft Office features that weren’t used because of this.”

To get the most out of the new collaboration solution, each employee was required to attend a three-hour, on-site classroom training session that introduced features and functionality of Office Professional Plus 2007. While employees attended the training session, the IT department replaced the older version of Microsoft Office on their computers with the 2007 version using a custom-developed script over the company network.

Once the initial trainees understood the new features, word spread and a positive buzz was generated around Office Professional Plus 2007. Coan Dillahunty Director of Enterprise Systems, GSD&M Idea City

The deployment and training for the company’s 500 employees took less than a week, due in large part to an efficient project manager who organized the training, but also to employees’ excitement over the new tools. “Once the initial trainees understood the new features, word spread and a positive buzz was generated around Office Professional Plus 2007,” says Dillahunty. “Those who didn’t already have the new software quickly became aware of the benefits and made sure to attend the training session and get the upgrade.”

In addition to the required training, GSD&M Idea City created a SharePoint site with a library of self-help documents on a range of common tasks such as the Mail Merge feature in Microsoft Office Word 2007, which had changed slightly from the older version. The site also directed users to additional training resources through Microsoft Office Online.

After the training session, users were quickly up and running with the 2007 Office release and taking advantage of new and improved features in the company’s most heavily used programs. GSD&M Idea City relies heavily on Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheet software for budgeting, forecasting, and media planning, and it also uses the Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 presentation graphics program for creating client presentations. “Right away, employees were using Office Excel 2007 and Office PowerPoint 2007 more effectively,” says Dillahunty, “and without help from our presentation specialists.” Presentation specialists work with fellow employees to create and finesse their client reports and presentations, but with the updated productivity software, employees are better able to create professional-looking reports and presentations on their own.

GSD&M Idea City also takes advantage of the Home Use Program, a benefit of Microsoft Software Assurance for Volume Licensing that gives employees the flexibility to use Office Professional Plus 2007 at work and at home. “We have quite a few employees who have taken advantage of the Home Use Program,” says Dillahunty. “We find that if they have the same applications at home and at work they become proficient much more quickly.”

Benefits

With its new software environment, GSD&M Idea City has boosted efficiency and simplified communications. By making it easier and faster for employees to access critical information and create high-quality presentations, the company has championed its Dynamic Collaboration initiative and empowered employees to provide a higher level of service to clients.

Higher Efficiency and Enhanced Communications
With Office Professional Plus 2007, GSD&M Idea City is experiencing better integration between its messaging and collaboration infrastructure, which leads to higher efficiency and enhanced communications among employees. For example, employees can access lists and document libraries that are stored on the Office SharePoint 2007 site from within Office Outlook 2007. “In Office Outlook 2003, we could consume information from SharePoint sites, but we weren’t able to edit the information from within Outlook,” says Dillahunty. “This is all different in Outlook 2007. The two-way synchronization and editing are a big benefit because users don’t have to switch between programs to update content.”

Example of a slide for a client presentation using the beveled graphics capabilities in Office PowerPoint 2007.

Integration between the company’s e-mail and intranet sites also enables GSD&M Idea City employees to subscribe to Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds from SharePoint sites, and to receive the information directly within Office Outlook 2007, making it easier for employees to stay up-to-date on company and project information. The RSS feeds deliver industry news, agency news, and information on agency events to employees.

Employees are also enjoying the ability to share calendar information between e-mail and intranet systems, which contributes to a more efficient collaborative environment. “Scheduling meetings used to be a complicated process,” says Rios. Previously, employees had to switch between two programs—their own calendars in Office Outlook 2003 and the team’s shared calendar on a SharePoint site to determine team members’ availability. Now, employees can connect a shared calendar in Office SharePoint Server 2007 to their own calendars in Office Outlook 2007 and, without switching programs, compare the two side-by-side or in an overlay fashion from within their e-mail system. “This simplified process gives us the ability to make quicker, more informed decisions about everyone’s availability,” adds Rios.

And thanks to the presence awareness features of Office Communicator 2007 and the integration of presence with the rest of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, GSD&M Idea City employees can easily see—within an e-mail message or on a SharePoint site, for example—whether a colleague is available for an instant-messaging conversation or phone call. “Integrated presence with Office Communicator 2007 has been huge,” says Rios. “The ability to quickly loop in a colleague to resolve an issue has been quite beneficial for us.”

Faster, Easier Access to Information
The company’s integrated communication and collaboration solution provides GSD&M Idea City employees with streamlined access to information. GSD&M Idea City has realized tremendous time-savings from the out-of-the-box Enterprise Search feature in Office SharePoint Server 2007. “Companywide, we save hundreds of hours each week from the search capabilities of SharePoint Server 2007,” says Rios. “Information is now in an arena that is much more accessible than before.”

In fact, this accessibility factor is rapidly making Office SharePoint Server 2007 the preferred environment among GSD&M Idea City teams for sharing project information and managing workflow. To create new sites for project teams, the IT department uses the forms capabilities of the Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 information gathering program to quickly compile the resources and data needed for a particular site. “InfoPath 2007 really streamlines the process for creating intranet sites,” says Rios. For example, if the finance department wants to create a new site on the corporate intranet, an employee from that department can quickly complete an Office InfoPath 2007 form. Once submitted, the IT department can review the information, prioritize the request, and deploy a new SharePoint site.

The new environment also boosts mobility for employees who travel to and work from client sites. By storing shared documents, slide shows, spreadsheets, and other information in Office SharePoint Server 2007 document libraries, users can check materials in and out while maintaining version control. Because they can access this information in Office Outlook 2007 even when not connected to the Internet, they can still work without being limited by the boundaries of corporate network connectivity.

GSD&M Idea City also finds that Office SharePoint Server 2007 helps connect people and information from different physical locations, creating a more integrated, collaborative atmosphere overall. “With SharePoint Server 2007,” says Dillahunty, “Our Chicago office can access information on our Austin site and vice versa. Also, our home-based workers and certain clients can access information on project sites.”

Simplified Process for Creating Reports
Formerly, GSD&M Idea City employees relied heavily on company specialists to create polished, client-ready reports in Office Excel 2003. “It used to be a longer process to create a compelling media presentation,” says Rios. “It was common for multiple iterations to go back and forth between the originating party and the specialist.” The expanded capabilities of Office Excel 2007, including predefined Chart Layouts and Chart Styles, and enhanced PivotChart® and PivotTable® dynamic views, enable users to do more on their own—without the help of a specialist. “With Excel 2007,” he adds, “users have the power to create compelling client-ready reports on their own. Less back and forth and fewer miscommunications means they can create professional-looking reports in much less time.”

Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets now support 1 million rows by 16,000 columns, making it possible for GSD&M Idea City employees to import and work with massive amounts of data and achieve faster calculations. Dillahunty says, “Our media buying department purchases advertising placements on TV, in media publications, and other venues. The goal is to get our creative in front of the right audiences. To prove that these media buys have had a positive impact on a client’s sales, we prepare complex, statistics-oriented reports. Our finance and media buying departments love the expanded capabilities of Excel 2007.” Dillahunty continues, “It enables them to represent complex data in an easy-to-understand fashion in a short amount of time. Information that may have taken them several graphs to express before, they can now express in one.” 

Presentation Tools That Save $20,000 Annually
GSD&M Idea City employees also used to rely on specialists to finesse and finalize most of their client presentations created in Office PowerPoint. Now, employees are able to use Office PowerPoint 2007 with its streamlined interface without as much help from specialists. Dustin Marchant, a Presentation Development Specialist at GSD&M Idea City, says, “With PowerPoint 2007, I no longer have to touch every presentation that leaves our office.” Marchant estimates that new and enhanced features, including advanced drawing tools, SmartArt® graphics for easily creating high-impact diagrams, and Document Themes for quickly applying new colors and styles, help him save, at the busiest times, up to 15 hours each week. This saves GSD&M Idea City up to nearly U.S.$20,000 annually.

GSD&M Idea City is also using Slide Libraries to share and reuse content—such as slides with the company’s branding, divider slides, and client-specific slides—by saving these as individual files on a SharePoint site. The library maintains a link to the original presentation, notifying users when slides change, making them aware of updated content. “Slide Libraries make creating PowerPoint 2007 presentations a much simpler process and result in a more standardized, consistent appearance. Slide libraries also help us ensure the integrity of the information in our presentations,” says Rios.

Finally, GSD&M Idea City’s Internal Communications department is able to broadcast a variety of useful and important information much more efficiently. With a Microsoft Office Word 2007 template, the department quickly creates and publishes blog posts to SharePoint sites. “Previously, we had a daily news e-mail that would be sent out to employees,” says Dillahunty. “The internal tool used to create the e-mail wasn’t nearly as flexible as what we have with Word 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007.” Now, the department can include inline images, and check spelling and format text in the familiar Office Word environment.

More Dynamic Collaboration
“One of the main reasons for our adoption of the 2007 Office system was to boost our Dynamic Collaboration initiative,” says Rios. “We wanted to make sure we had the technology in place to support our go-to-market strategy. Our new infrastructure, based on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, goes hand in hand with our culture that’s based on innovation and collaboration and making a difference for our clients. We have enabled our employees to communicate more easily, to bring each other into conversations on the spot, to centralize project information, to be aware of important milestones, to be less reliant on e-mail, and in general, to be better informed about our clients and our projects.”

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

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For more information about GSD&M Idea City products and services, call (512) 242 - 4736 or visit the Web site at:
www.ideacity.com