Microsoft Customer Solution
Customer Solution Case Study
Management Firm Finds More Flexibility with
Microsoft Software and Online Services
Customer: MITIE
Website: www.mitie.com
Customer Size: 56,000
Country or Region: United Kingdom
Industry: Professional services
Customer Profile
MITIE is a strategic outsourcing company,
with 56,000 employees at more than 200
sites throughout the United Kingdom.
The company generates annual revenues
of almost U.S.$2.5 billion.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Office
− Microsoft Office 2010
 Microsoft Online Services
− Microsoft Business Productivity
Online Standard Suite
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008
− Windows Server 2008
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“Moving to Google Apps meant accepting an
ultimatum—the cloud or nothing. With Microsoft, we
are able to move to the cloud at our own pace, when
the time is right for us.”
David Aird, Head of Group IT, MITIE
MITIE wanted the agility and reduced costs associated with
cloud computing. The company evaluated hosted services from
Google Apps, but it did not want to entirely give up the proven
performance of an on-premises IT environment. Instead, MITIE
found the familiarity and flexibility it needs by combining
Microsoft Office 2010 software with the Microsoft Business
Productivity Online Standard Suite, offered through Microsoft
Online Services.
Business Needs
Based in the city of Bristol, United
Kingdom, MITIE provides strategic
outsourcing and asset management for
almost every aspect of its customers’
facilities, such as mechanical and electrical
engineering, electronic and physical
security, lighting, air conditioning,
reception services, food services, landscaping, and property maintenance. The
company has more than 56,000 employees
at more than 200 sites throughout the
United Kingdom, and generates annual
revenues of £1.7 billion (U.S.$2.5 billion).
MITIE performs many different services at
many different locations, from relatively
small retail spaces to corporate office
towers. The company is expanding quickly,
through a combination of organic growth
and acquisition. It needs an IT infrastructure that provides the flexibility to scale
systems up and down, and the business
agility to bring new services to market
quickly. And, MITIE would like to be able to
do it all as cost-effectively as possible.
“Traditional IT models can make it difficult
to keep up with growth,” says David Aird,
Head of Group IT at MITIE. “To get the
flexibility you need, you have to provision
systems long before they’re needed, and
you may wind up only using 50 percent of
your capacity. It tends to be expensive.”
To get the scalability and agility it wanted,
MITIE became very interested in cloud
computing—the use of computing
resources acquired through the Internet as
services. But while cloud computing offers
flexibility without a high infrastructure
investment, MITIE did not want to give up
the control, familiarity, and proven
performance of its on-premises IT
environment.
“Cloud computing is something we’re very
keen on,” says Aird. “But we want to make
sure we are comfortable with the maturity
of the services before we move forward.”
Solution
To provide productivity and communication
tools for its 6,000 PC users, MITIE relied
primarily on Microsoft Office 2003 and
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. When its
license agreements were about to expire,
the company began to consider replacing
its on-premises solutions with cloud
technologies. MITIE initially evaluated
Google Apps, a suite of hosted productivity
and email services offered by Google.
MITIE was interested in Google Apps based
on its competitive pricing, but on closer
examination, the company found that
Google Apps lacked many of the familiar
features of Microsoft Office that its
employees had come to rely on. “Initially,
it’s easy to be tempted by Google’s low
price,” says Aird. “But when we looked at
the cost of retraining staff and the impact
on usability with so many key features
missing, it became a much more expensive
proposition. The negative impact on
productivity would have outweighed any
cost savings.”
Most importantly, while MITIE was looking
for flexibility, Google Apps offered an
ironically rigid model: hosted-only services,
with no on-premises environment to rely
on. MITIE elected to pursue a more
evolutionary approach, combining onpremises software with hosted services.
In mid-to-late 2010, MITIE will deploy an
updated IT and messaging environment
that will incorporate the Windows Server
2008 operating system, Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 data management software,
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, the
Microsoft Office 2010 suite of productivity
programs, and a companywide intranet
portal developed with Microsoft
SharePoint Server 2010. The company will
then augment its productivity and
collaboration systems with components of
the Microsoft Business Productivity Online
Standard Suite, a collection of messaging
and collaboration services hosted in
Microsoft data centers.
“Moving to Google Apps meant accepting
an ultimatum—the cloud or nothing,” says
Aird. “With Microsoft, we are able to move
to the cloud at our own pace, when the
time is right for us.”
Benefits
By updating its productivity and collaboration environments with software such as
Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010,
and hosted services in the Business
Productivity Online Standard Suite, MITIE
can cost-effectively enhance both its IT
and its business flexibility, while offering its
employees the tools they need to work
together effectively and generate
innovation.
Keeping Pace with Business Growth
As MITIE continues to grow and reach new
customers, it can use the Business
Productivity Online Standard Suite to
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SUMMARY.
Document published June 2010
quickly expand its IT capacity, without
having to invest in new capital projects.
“We’ll be able to reduce the time it takes
to launch a new service from months down
to days,” says Aird. “And we’ll be able to
do it without having to spend tens of
thousands of pounds on more infrastructure. We’re going to be much more agile.”
Real Flexibility
By making the choice to combine familiar
Microsoft software with trusted Microsoft
online services, MITIE will enhance its
business flexibility by being able to scale IT
resources quickly and easily in the cloud,
without being forced into any one single IT
model.
“We are growing fast and keen to
transition to cloud services, but we also
want to be in control of our own destiny,”
says Aird. “With Microsoft, we get the
choice and flexibility we want, with the
added benefits of a consistent, familiar
user experience and a platform that we
have full confidence in to meet our
enterprise needs.”
Cost-Effective Change
By updating its productivity and
collaboration environments, MITIE can
provide its employees with new
functionalities that will enhance their
productivity and help them collaborate
more effectively. And by staying with
familiar Microsoft solutions, the company
can forgo the added expense of having to
train its 6,000 PC users how to use new
technologies.
“If we had to retrain just 60 percent of our
users, that might have cost us hundreds of
thousands of pounds,” says Aird.