Luxury audio and video kit maker, Bang & Olufsen, has signed up to use Microsoft Office 365 to host its email, calendaring, collaboration and communications in the cloud.
The move means the company will ditch incumbent email system, Lotus Notes, which it described as very limiting. For example, while 75 per cent of Bang & Olufsen’s 2,000 employees work remotely, only the 150 with company-issued smartphones could access Lotus Notes.
Ole Damsgaard, senior director of IT and the shared service centre at Bang & Olufsen, said: “We investigated whether we should continue relying on internal servers or go with a cloud solution. And we realized that we could save money by going to the cloud with Office 365.”
After consulting with its IT provider, Proactive, the company concluded cloud would provide cost savings of 82 per cent compared to building its own on-premise IT environment.
Damsgaard said employee familiarity with Microsoft products and ease of integration were primary reasons for choosing Office 365 over other cloud products.
“Our employees are used to using Outlook and other Microsoft products. It was easy to integrate Office 365 into our existing work environment and for our workers to start using it right away because they already know the tools,” he said.
“And now, everybody who has a smartphone can very easily access their emails and calendars.”
