“We love Microsoft Exchange but don’t want to have to look after it. While we have IT capable staff, we didn’t want to hire a full timer to look after it. The tools provided with Office 365 proved to be so much more cost effective, time efficient and reliable to run than we expected”

Dr Sam Hazledine, Managing Director, MedRecruit

Losing precious work time plus ongoing reliability and maintenance hiccups, meant it was time for MedRecruit to have another think about its email system. A super-reliable email system had become even more critical as MedRecruit was growing fast. Not having access to email impacts the business directly and is unnecessarily disruptive to staff. MedRecruit needed an email system which would provide complete reliability and a high level of performance for local and international staff. Staff also need to be able to access company documents and information whenever and where ever they were working. Office 365 has given MedRecruit an online email solution that ticks all the boxes. It can be accessed from almost anywhere, it’s reliable and the company will always have the most up-to-date software.

Business NeedsWith a vision to improve the work/life balance and opportunities available to doctors, Sam Hazledine founded MedRecruit in 2006. The concept was created after Sam, a doctor himself, faced limited options to combine his lifestyle choices with his work. After numerous discussions with other doctors he realized he wasn’t alone, so set out to provide doctors with what they really wanted from a recruitment company.

The result was MedRecruit, a specialist recruitment company for the medical profession – committed to providing doctors with a job that suits their lifestyle. The company is based in Queenstown and has 20 staff spread across New Zealand and Australia, as well as a network of international contacts.MedRecruit has seen rapid growth in a very short space of time and like most businesses is highly dependent on its IT system. Reliability is all important and

Customer: MedRecruitWeb Site: http://www.medrecruit.comCountry or Region: New ZealandIndustry: Medical recruitment

Customer ProfileMedRecruit is a specialist recruitment company for the medical profession, committed to providing Doctors with not only a job but also with a lifestyle. The company is based in Queenstown and they now have 20 staff spread between New Zealand and Australia as well as a network of international contacts.

Software and Services Microsoft Office 365 Microsoft Exchange Microsoft Lync Microsoft SharePoint Microsoft Office Professional

Plus

For more information about Microsoft Cloud Services, go to:www.microsoft.com/cloud

Enrollment for Core InfrastructureCustomer Solution Case Study

Moving email online gives medical recruiters the edge

email which is ‘always on’ is non-negotiable. Technology updates and maintenance were stopping staff from just getting on with the job which is hugely frustrating.“As so many of our daily tasks involve communicating with people, when our email goes down we are in a world of hurt. Our business is effectively paralysed – something we weren’t prepared to tolerate any longer,” says Sam Hazledine, Managing Director of MedRecruit.

SolutionTo put a halt on staff frustration, MedRecruit worked with trusted IT partner Intergen, to determine exactly what it needed to keep the business running smoothly and decided on a new IT solution, Office 365 in May 2011. This works alongside their existing customer relationship management (CRM) software, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 software.

Microsoft Office 365 is a set of cloud-based email, calendaring, collaboration, and conferencing services combined with web-based versions of Microsoft Office productivity programs such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel This means MedRecruit has the best of the Microsoft products all readily accessible, at fixed monthly costs, and without significant set up costs as it’s all on line (rather than needing servers and lots of hardware).

Because email is mission critical for the company, Intergen tested and trialed the new email software while the old one was still up and running. As the testing was successful, staff started using Office 365 and the old email system was shut down.

“The testing process went really smoothly which was fantastic. We have worked closely with Intergen for a number of years now and are really pleased with the expertise and support the team provides us,” says Sam.

MedRecruit now has a solid IT system to support its ongoing business needs. . Physical, onsite servers are no longer required, and all company files and information are stored online, in the Cloud, making it easy for staff to access at any time, from anywhere they have phone or

internet access. Most importantly email is performing as expected. ,

“The new solution provides us with functionality that was previously unknown to us. All the software talks to each other, combining email, text and instant messaging, and vital company assets are safely stored only a few short mouse clicks away," says Sam.

BenefitsMedRecruit list a range of benefits thanks to Microsoft Office 365.

These include: a one-stop shop for all

technology requirements cost savings and cost certainty staff can access emails and

documents whenever and where ever they need to

confidence in the security of its files and information

upgrades and backups are taken care of with no fuss.

A one stop shopOffice 365 has provided MedRecruit with the full package – email, intranet, document storage and online communications.

“Office 365 has been ideal for our agile and high growth business. In less than four years we have grown from a start-up to a multi-million dollar company, and it is exciting to see our technology starting to match that growth,” says Sam.

Microsoft Exchange is typically aimed at bigger businesses which have the resources to maintain the system.

“We love Microsoft Exchange but don’t want to have to look after it. While we have IT capable staff, we didn’t want to hire a full timer to look after it. The tools provided with Office 365 proved to be so much more cost effective, time efficient and reliable to run than we expected,” says Rachel Brown, Communications and Client Experience Manager for MedRecruit.

Office 365 provides MedRecruit with flexibility and independence when it comes to adding new staff members to the system – it’s DIY due to its simplicity.

“A huge benefit has been the ability to integrate other software such as Office Professional with Office 365, and we love that we can add Office Professional into our subscription. All we need to do now when a new staff member joins is get a PC sent to us and use the web-based Office 365 tool to set up the account. Previously

we would have been restricted to the timings of our IT provider. It will save us so much time.”

‘We have also seen a number of improvements in the speed at which staff are able to get jobs done now we are running Microsoft Lync – a solution that was previously out of reach for an organization of our size. Lync is now proving essential for our business as we use it for voice presence and chat, both within our offices and particularly between our New Zealand and Australian business. We couldn’t live without it now!” says Sam.

Microsoft Lync allows staff to speed up communications with each other or customers, provides more options on how to communicate and documents can be shared through online presentations. Lync uses a combination of video, audio, voice, instant messaging and screen sharing to achieve this.

Increased costs savingsMedRecruit has seen significant cost savings as they no longer need to hire extra IT specialists to run in-house email servers. These costs include ongoing server hosting and maintenance as well as IT support when the technology solution broke down.

“There was no real capital cost in subscribing to Office 365, so in terms of monthly fees it effectively started paying for itself immediately. We are also seeing tangible savings as there is less staff downtime due to technology failure.”

“We are operating in a competitive environment and any savings we can make allows us to funnel additional funding into assisting our clients with their recruitment needs. We are seeing lower total costs for the overall IT system, especially with our new email system, which is fantastic.”

Access to company documents anytime, anywhereAs a trans-Tasman company, MedRecruit staff need to be able to share documents with overseas colleagues, ideally with the right version of a document and formatting staying the same each time the document is shared.

With Office 365 MedRecruit has noticed staff can work on the same documents and spreadsheets without it causing headaches from people making changes to different versions. This is because staff are working off one document which is hosted online, not different versions stored on individual PCs and laptops.

Confidence in technology

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, [list other trademarks referenced] are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners..

Document published June 2011

The Office 365 solution has provided MedRecruit with complete technology reliability.

“So far we have had 100 percent reliability; we don’t even have to think about the solution, it just works when you need it to, which is all the time. The down time we used to have due to technology failure just doesn’t happen anymore,” says Sam.

“Staff have responded really positively to the new technology. The speed at which jobs are completed has shot through the roof. A great example is meeting coordination – now we can see all staff calendars, rather than having to go and ask around who is available, so meetings can be set up in a flash, saving hours of admin time a month.”

Automatic email upgrades and backups Using Office 365 means MedRecruit is always using the most up-to-date version of the software, upgrades are handled remotely, and company data is always backed-up, protected and available.

"Office 365 gives us the best of breed communications tools (Exchange, Outlook and Lync) hosted and managed by the people who created them, making them extra reliable."

“The knowledge that company data is constantly protected is very reassuring – especially with the confidentiality requirements of the recruitment industry.”

Alongside the Office 365 solution, MedRecruit use Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, which they started using earlier in the year. Staff can effectively manage clients and candidates with the ability to look up a candidate's history with the company at any time or find out what the last phone call was about. This is hugely valuable to a company that relies on its relationships. Next on the list for MedRecruit is Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) program that is fast to implement and easy to use. This system allows MedRecruit to have better control of their resources from stock to staff and day to day business planning. Important for the company all the Microsoft products ‘talk to each other’ so ERP system works alongside Dynamics CRM and Office 365 with no issue.

For MedRecruit, Office 365 is a cost effective option that has delivered exactly what the company’s had hoped. . The team is now investigating the next stage of the technology upgrade – moving from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to Microsoft Dynamics CRM online and Windows Azure.

With the growth MedRecruit has seen over the last four years and the plans to take the

full technology solution online, there is no doubt the company will continue to grow and expand – using technology as a key part of it’s success.

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, [list other trademarks referenced] are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners..

Document published June 2011