A Green Solution For An Alternative Energy Company

The following case study is about a business that designs and manufactures products that make it possible for all homeowners to participate in the exploding trend of alternative energies. The solutions offered by this business are a simple yet cost efficient way to make a sensible difference in energy consumption while improving family comfort and extending the life of building materials.

Believing that superior customer service is the backbone of any successful company, they consider every employee to be in customer service at some level. With such a high level of focus on customer satisfaction and environmental issues, the business decided they needed to get their information technology in line with their business philosophy.

The Problem

Through a long period of testing and experimentation, this business found that employees delivered a higher level of service, and were happier with their jobs when they were given flexible working arrangements that included the option of working from home. In addition to being focused and more productive, there was an overall decrease in employees missing work for various reasons. The task now at hand for this company  was to find the right technology model to allow this type of flexibility for the employees. The solution must also be scalable, affordable and easy enough to configure and install on employees home computers.

Management at this company also had a desire to reduce the internal focus of resources and expenditure of funds on hardware, software, and IT services. Being focused on the development of alternative energy solutions, the company did not have the desire to continue placing valuable resources in the implementation and ongoing management of computers and software. Outsourcing the business’s IT not only made sense from an operational viewpoint, but also presented the company with a way to create predictable IT costs. With the business growing rapidly, bringing IT costs under control and being able to accurately forecast cost increases was of paramount importance.

The company decided to use Salesforce.com for the sales and service aspects of the business. Salesforce.com, a web-based application service, offered the functionality and the flexibility which would allow customer service and support personnel to work from virtually any location, including their homes. As a Software-as-a-Service offering, Salesforce.com did not require the company to purchase any up front software or hardware for implementation.

Unfortunately, the business also needed a flexible way for the customer service team to use a telephone service in conjunction with their CRM application. With hosted voice services provided by Packet8 (8×8), the data from Salesforce.com is integrated with the 8×8 VOIP solution, and allows for call placement and call receiving regardless of employee location. Using the hosted services from Packet8, the company’s employees have full CRM and telephone capabilities, whether in the office or at home. The integration between 8×8 and Salesforce.com ensures that the appropriate customer information is available when a customer call is received, and dials out customer numbers correctly. All calls traverse the company’s VOIP service, so employees are not using their own telephones or service for business, eliminating telephone expense reporting and reimbursement.

The company’s accounting and finance departments used QuickBooks Enterprise. For productivity, the entire company used Microsoft Office. Both of these presented a level of frustration for management, as they are desktop and network applications rather than Web-based solutions. At first, the company believed that the only way to integrate the various applications, web-based solutions and telephone service would be to invest in servers, software and additional IT. It was also believed that software installation and configuration work would have to be done on each employee’s home computer, assuming that the home computers were sufficiently compatible, up-to-date, and powerful enough to run the required applications.

The InsynQ Solution

InsynQ’s cloud based solutions were able to address and meet all of this business’s IT requirements. With the InsynQ Virtual Desktop, the company was able to obtain a comprehensive, outsourced business solution utilizing services and applications they previously received from several vendors. InsynQ, a licensed provider of hosting service for Intuit’s QuickBooks products and a service provider partner of Microsoft, offered a service which not only provided for hosting and management of the QuickBooks Enterprise applications and Microsoft Office suite, but also provided the hosting for the connectivity between QuickBooks Enterprise and Salesforce.com using Pervasive Datasynch, Packet8 and Salesforce.com integration, and connecting MS Outlook to Salesforce.com. On the InsynQ Virtual Desktop, employees are able to run their web-based Salesforce.com applications, all the integrations and MS Office applications. No software was installed on the employees home or office computers, eliminating the need to manage and maintain installations on an ongoing basis. The Virtual Desktop delivery from InsynQ allowed for complete functionality and use of all the applications from virtually anywhere and on any computer.

The company now benefits from a comprehensive managed IT solution which delivers all the application and business functionality they need, with the ability to easily add users as they grow. The business is also able to continue its philosophy of keeping their employees happy and committed by allowing for maximum flexibility in working arrangements. Their IT costs are now predictable, and the business can easily obtain additional service for new users quickly, without having to first purchase additional software or upgrade servers.

InsynQ gives businesses the processing power of a data center, while using less equipment for the task. InsynQ promotes the use of thin client technologies, which scale down the equipment requirements for clients and subscribers. Less equipment means less heat generated and less power consumed. InsynQ also promotes the concept of working from anywhere at any time, which often means time and distance don’t stop business from getting done. Plus, InsynQ allows subscribers to transfer, view and store documents in the cloud rather than in print, a practice that helps businesses become paperless.

Going with the InsynQ solution of hosted applications and managed IT services gave the business in this case an alternative computing option that improved access and flexibility, created control and cost predictability, and aligned the business’s technology strategy with the overall philosophy of the business.