Tru-Marine, one of the world’s largest specialist in turbocharger repairs and parts supply, wanted to tighten workflow integration and improve information flow within its business divisions to better meet customers’ needs. With Microsoft Dynamics™, it successfully integrated information flow, streamlined critical business processes and increased business visibility – all critical factors in accelerating its global expansion.

IT is business-critical for Saudi Post, an organization that relies on technology for effective and efficient delivery of high-quality and modern postal services. The IT department saw itself as a reliable service provider that met and exceeded customers’ needs, and IT management knew that processes, people, and the IT service life cycle were critical to this effort. When Saudi Post unveiled a plan for its next-generation postal services, the IT department reviewed its operations to see how it could best support Saudi Post’s business goals. An IT Service Management Assessment determined that the creation of a Network Operations Center would help the IT department manage, operate, monitor, and support all IT services more effectively and efficiently. Now, Saudi Post has reduced IT operations costs and improved service reliability and has an organized IT operations structure.

Saudi Post depends on technology for the effectiveness and efficiency of its high-quality and modern postal services. Thus, the IT department saw itself as a reliable service provider that met customers’ needs at or above expected service levels. When Saudi Post unveiled a blueprint for next-generation postal services, IT management realized the need to balance a technology improvement strategy with an examination of processes, people, and the IT service life cycle to be able to effectively support business processes and to provide reliable IT services. An IT Service Management Assessment recommended a two-year Service Improvement Program to make overall improvements and determined that a centralized IT Service Desk would be key to providing more reliable and available IT service. Now, the Saudi Post Service Desk provides consistent, timely service that customers appreciate.

For 25 years Epicor has been creating creative enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and mid-sized businesses and Global 1000 companies. Epicor has 20,000 customers in more than 150 countries, and generated 2008 revenue of U.S.$487.8 million. The company recently released Epicor 9, an innovative service-oriented architecture (SOA) offering that converges all of its products into a single, flexible solution using what Epicor refers to as its True SOA™ approach to delivering ERP solutions. To meet customer requests for a powerful and cost efficient reporting environment, the company migrated Epicor 9 reporting to Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Reporting Services. The report migration went smoothly and users benefit from easier report tracking, automated report distribution, and a better user experience from working with a more interoperable solution stack.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in the United Kingdom wanted to reduce costs and improve public service delivery by offering more services electronically and by streamlining business processes. As a national leader in local government information and communications technology (ICT), the council entered a joint venture partnership with BT—called RBT—to drive forward its modernisation agenda. As part of the programme to improve the collection of revenues and administration of benefits, the council decided to deploy an enterprise service bus (ESB) offering. It also used the Microsoft® Application Platform with Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006 as the orchestration layer. As a result, the council is handling citizens’ requests for service—such as changes in payment methods for council tax—in seconds rather than days.

Global insurance and banking company Skandia collaborated with Microsoft on a project to upgrade its online banking services with Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2. Thanks to the collaboration, which included attendance at a three-week Performance and Stability Lab, Skandia has found the right environment to improve Web performance significantly. The Internet bank also predicts it can serve more than 1 million clients a day with the solution.

Alpha Bank carefully evaluates customer feedback to provide improved services that meet customer needs. However, the bank’s infrastructure had grown obsolete, making it difficult for the IT team to effectively develop new services for its alternative banking channels, such as the Internet and phone. The Alpha Bank IT team worked with Microsoft Services to build a service-oriented architecture that would be more flexible. To provide end-to-end value, Microsoft Services also helped the bank develop a new call center application, establish a business intelligence solution for capturing customer data, and instill best practices for developing on the Microsoft application platform. With the help of Microsoft Services, Alpha Bank has reduced the risks of moving forward on a project of this magnitude and maximized the business value that IT delivers.

The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) provides a range of health services to the citizens of Arizona. When the federal government required that all state health departments facilitate interoperable information exchange between public health partners, ADHS adopted the Partner Healthcare Electronic Data EXchange (PHEDEX), a data integration solution powered by Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2, from The Simi Group. With its new solution, ADHS was able to quickly comply with federal regulations, eliminate paper from its lab reporting process, increase the quality of data reported, and increase public safety. By eliminating manual data entry, ADHS staff members are more productive and efficient, and can focus on quality data analysis. The department saved an estimated U.S.$2 million and years of development time by acquiring a commercial solution instead of building its own.

To increase productivity and reduce costs, leading recruitment consultancy Michael Page International (MPI) decided to deploy a standardised, global IT environment and service oriented architecture (SOA). With no way to effectively align IT infrastructure and services with key business needs, the Chief Technology Officer asked key technology partners for support. Microsoft provided a unique solution based on the Microsoft Services Business Architecture (MSBA) methodology and Microsoft Services Service Oriented Modelling (SOM) solution, which provide unique structure and focus for SOA decisions. These solutions were deployed by leading Microsoft Services architects who mapped core MPI global business functions, defined and assessed the required IT services, and delivered detailed solution architecture designs in just a few months—on time and within budget.

Microsoft Information Technology (MSIT) manages the applications and systems that support a global sales force of more than 9,000. This document provides an overview of the program developed by MSIT and Microsoft Sales, Marketing, and Services Group (SMSG) to deploy a role-based Global Sales Experience (GSX) solution, powered by Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. GSX improves both the efficiency and effectiveness of the Microsoft sales force, while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) of sales force automation.