Microsoft Office 365 Takes Emperor Group to the Cloud

Empowering productivity, collaboration and reduced IT costs

HONG KONG, March 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Since the public launch of Microsoft Office 365 in June last year, the number of new customers added to the service in Hong Kong soared by 250%. Building on the strength of its compelling functionality and high flexibility, Office 365 has proven a hit with enterprises and SMEs. More than 55% of these new customers come from the small- and mid-size business market, and more than 70% start cloud by using Exchange Online.

(From left to right) Gary Choi, Chief Information Officer of the Emperor Group and David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead for Microsoft Hong Kong shared how Microsoft Office 365 enables Emperor Group to save costs and be more productive

"Microsoft is the cloud leader in the IT industry," says David Hooper, Information Worker Business Group Lead for Microsoft Hong Kong. "The rapid growth in local customers for Office 365 is testament to that, and we continue to bring more and more customers from various industries into the cloud. Team Communication & Collaboration is key to business competitiveness and growth, especially in the midst of the current uncertain economic outlook, and our easy-to-use, secure, reliable and cost-efficient cloud solutions meet today’s business requirements better than ever."

One prominent new customer in the Greater China region is Emperor Group, a diversified conglomerate listed in Hong Kong. It currently runs eight types of businesses, one of which is watch & jewellery. Emperor Watch and Jewellery is an internationally-acclaimed retailer of prestigious watches and jewellery with more than 1,200 staff split between its Hong Kong headquarters and its mainland China retail operations.

"Emperor Group runs a wide range of businesses and we realize the increasing importance of building a global brand and a unified presence with a common IT platform and a single domain name for these businesses. Also, to keep up with the rapid growth of our businesses and cater to increasing demands from users for communication access anytime, anywhere, we were seeking a compelling cloud solution that can integrate well with our existing IT infrastructure so that we can migrate to cloud on our own terms. As such, the deployment of Office 365 could not have come at better time," says Gary Choi, Chief Information Officer of the Emperor Group.

With the support of technology consultant Wai On Services Limited, Emperor Group evaluated Office 365 and decided to deploy it because Office 365 can support multiple domains and hybrid mode while also offering a complete suite of functionality from email to collaboration that can meet the requirements of long term business growth with robust security protection from a trustworthy brand. Using Emperor Watch & Jewellery as a cloud pilot, Emperor Group started to deploy Office 365 at the end of September 2011 and within a month was up and running with Exchange Online providing stable performance and good compatibility with their on-premises IT infrastructure. Now, more than 300 users primarily within Emperor Watch & Jewellery are using Office 365.

"Within just a few months of deployment, we are already seeing tremendous benefits, one of which is reduced upfront IT costs. Office 365 is easy to deploy with minimum training required and it takes only one-third of the normal implementation time. With its faster deployment and comprehensive migration and management tools, it is estimated to save our IT resources half a man-year that can now be spent on other critical business priorities. We can see a 30% reduction in upfront IT costs by moving to Office 365," adds Mr. Choi.

"Another benefit of Office 365 is its rich functionality including large mailboxes and greater mobility. Our users now have access anytime, anytime and on any device, meeting the increased demand for speedier and tighter collaboration between Hong Kong and China operations. Last but not the least is its great reliability and security that we get from Microsoft’s certified Datacenters against international standards and backed by the reputation of the Microsoft brand. 

"Overall, we are very satisfied with the stable performance of Office 365 and have been exploring a more extensive migration of Office 365 by increasing the users to 1,000 over time. We are also evaluating other services within Office 365 such as SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Lync Mobile so as to enjoy the full benefits of the Office 365 suite."

Since launch, Office 365 has introduced more than 40 new features to enrich its functionality and the overall service. Some of the latest updates include:

• Enabling Anywhere Access

o           RIM Blackberry Business Cloud Services

o           Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" support

o           Lync Mobile for Windows Phone, Android, iOS & Symbian

o           Live ID Sign-on for Extranet access

o           Support for IE9 and Chrome

• Providing an Easy and Familiar User Experience

o           Creating compelling Web and intranet sites

o           PDF viewing support

o           Support for OS X Lion

o           IE9 "OWA pin to task bar"

o           Dynamics CRM integrated into Office 365

For more information about these new updates, please visit:
http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/office_365_service_updates/default.aspx

From now through June 2012, Microsoft Office 365 is offering a special promotion: "Office 365 Be Productive On the GO!" Each month, new subscribers to Microsoft Office 365 who describe how Office 365 can help take their work and business to the next level in terms of productivity or efficiency (in 50 words or fewer) can win the latest ASUS Zenbook UX21E and Windows Phone, the Nokia LUMIA 800. For more details, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/hk/office365/promotion/

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.