2 page Case Study - Posted 2/26/2009

Views: 632

Rate This Evidence:

Scandic

Hotel Chain Expects to Cut Servers 50 percent, Boost Productivity with Online Software

Scandic, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, wanted to explore the possibility of upgrading and centralizing its IT infrastructure to add new capabilities and lower costs. The company is evaluating the Microsoft® Business Productivity Online Standard Suite to give employees a more flexible, streamlined way to communicate and to increase productivity. Scandic expects to reduce its servers by 50 percent, reduce IT support, and lower electrical costs.

Business Needs

Scandic is the Nordic region’s leading hotel chain, with 151 hotels in 10 countries. Scandic serves both leisure and business travelers and boasts a well-articulated environmental program that includes more than 100 environmentally-friendly hotels. The company employs 6,600 people across Europe.
 
In 2007, Hilton Hotels Corporation sold Scandic to EQT, a Swedish private equity firm. Once it was independent from Hilton’s IT organization and standards, Scandic started to develop its own IT strategy. “We have already upgraded our reservation system and are now looking into our hotel management and other major systems,” says Pia Hofstedt, Director of IT for Scandic. “We want to streamline our business operations and centralize IT operations and infrastructure. The company is growing, and we want to provide new services more cost effectively, automate more processes, and improve the way we communicate and share information with guests, hotels, and internal users.”

Scandic is expanding by building new hotels, which involves many interactions within the organization and with suppliers. The company wanted a more automated way of communicating and collaborating, to speed new hotel rollouts.

Most of Scandic’s IT environment is based on Novell software. Each hotel has its own Novell GroupWise messaging server, so Hofstedt’s staff has to visit each hotel to perform hardware upgrades and maintenance. This does not promote efficiency and incurs high support costs. “Today’s Novell infrastructure is working fine, but we want to explore new ways of communicating with our employees, such as instant messaging and a more modern intranet,” Hofstedt says. “The market is moving and we need to keep up. We are interested in having a platform that enables us to move ahead as flexibly and economically as possible. Our ambition is to lower our total cost of ownership.”

Solution

To achieve more flexibility and cost efficiency, Scandic is creating a road map for modernizing key systems and a strategy for setting up and managing its infrastructure. During that process, the company took a look at Microsoft® Online Services. Scandic’s local IT solutions provider, Zipper by Enfo, also based in Stockholm, told Hofstedt about the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite from Microsoft Online Services. The

With Microsoft Online Services, we could save 3 million SEK [U.S.$334,000] annually in server depreciation costs, as well as reduce our support costs. Pia Hofstedt Director of IT, Scandic

For a low per-user monthly subscription fee, Scandic could instantly upgrade its Novell e-mail environment to Exchange Online—with no outlay for servers, storage, or software licensing. “Microsoft Online Services could offer a new way of working for us,” Hofstedt says. “I felt it would be a good way to experiment with cloud-based services and see how they might fit into our long-term strategy.”

Scandic has started with 20 users on Microsoft Online Services and can add more whenever it suits the business. “Microsoft Online Services gives us the freedom of choice,” Hofstedt says. “We can combine online and on-premises software to meet our business needs.” At the same time, the company has decided to deploy Microsoft Office Professional 2007 on its 3,000 desktop computers. The upgrade gives users new productivity-enhancing features across all the Microsoft Office programs and enables them to use the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client to take full advantage of Exchange Online and Office Communications Online.

Benefits

With Microsoft Online Services, Scandic expects to discover new ways to lower IT costs, scale its IT infrastructure, and respond to user needs. If Scandic subscribes to Microsoft Online Services companywide, it anticipates increased productivity from faster, more automated communications, which equates to faster, better decisions.
 
Servers trimmed by 50 percent. With Microsoft Online Services, Scandic could eliminate its entire e-mail infrastructure, trimming total server count by 50 percent, and reducing electrical power and management costs. “With Microsoft Online Services, we could save 3 million SEK [U.S.$334,000] annually in server depreciation costs, as well as reduce our support costs,” Hofstedt says.
 
Flexible, scalable technology. Using Microsoft Online Services, Scandic would have an easier way to scale its IT services up or down as business required. “We expect to grow, and Microsoft Online Services could help us deliver services to users faster without expanding our IT infrastructure,” Hofstedt says. “Without the expensive, time-consuming deployment of servers and software required at each hotel, we can roll out new hotels and new user services much faster.”

Increased productivity. Hofstedt expects that users would be able to work more productively using Microsoft Online Services. “This could help us speed up and improve communications and decisions using presence indicators, shared workspaces, and shared calendars,” she says. “Instead of mailing reams of paper documents back and forth when launching a new hotel, all parties will be able to share them electronically using SharePoint sites. This should result in faster hotel openings and project completion.”

Reduced environmental impact. Scandic has ambitious goals to halve its carbon emissions by 2011 and reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2025. Trimming its server holdings by approximately 50 percent will help tremendously. “Microsoft Online Services supports our ambition to be environmentally conscious by enabling us to operate with fewer servers and less energy consumption, eliminating approximately 800 metrics tons of carbon dioxide a year,” Hofstedt says.