Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS)
Teaming with Accenture and Avanade Helps Companies Maximize Value in Adoption of Cloud Services
Published March 2010
Abstract
Cloud computing provides an attractive option for CIOs who are looking to empower
workers, reduce costs, and free scarce internal resources to add value in new ways.
For many companies, the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS)
Suite—including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and
Office Communications Online—is a strong candidate for starting down the road to
cloud computing.
To support growing client interest in BPOS, Accenture and Avanade are augmenting
their services to help clients evaluate its suitability, mitigate potential risks, ensure a
smooth transition, and maximize business value. The remainder of this document
examines the “How and Why” behind that effort to embrace BPOS, including the
value that Accenture and Avanade see in promoting it as an alternative to traditional,
on-premises implementations of Microsoft messaging and collaboration solutions.
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Background.............................................................................................. 1
The Lure of Cloud Computing................................................................ 3
A Logical First Step ................................................................................. 5
BPOS: An Overview ................................................................................ 6
Offerings for Information Workers and Deskless Workers .............................. 7
Significant Business Advantages .................................................................... 7
Accenture and Avanade Services for BPOS ........................................ 9
Assessment and Planning Services ................................................................ 9
Transition and Migration Services ................................................................... 9
Operations and Support Services ................................................................... 9
Internal Sales and Delivery Readiness ......................................................... 10
Early Market Traction ............................................................................ 11
Conclusion ............................................................................................. 13
For More Information .................................................................................... 13
CONTENTS
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 1
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services, and
outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive
capabilities, and extensive research, Accenture’s "high performance business"
strategy builds on the company’s broad expertise to help clients create
sustainable business value. With approximately 177,000 people working in
more than 120 countries, Accenture generated more than U.S.$21billion in
revenue in its 2009 fiscal year.
In 2000, Accenture (then called Anderson Consulting) entered into a $1 billion
joint venture with Microsoft to form Avanade, a business technology services
provider dedicated to using the Microsoft platform to help enterprises achieve
profitable growth. Over the last 10 years, Avanade has grown to several
hundred million dollars in annual revenue, with more than 9,100 employees
who serve customers in 20 countries.
Since the formation of Avanade, the three companies have worked closely
together, drawing upon their combined strengths to help customers achieve
sustainable business value. One such effort started in 2005, when they began
collaborating on the next generation workplace—a strategic initiative that
combines business process engineering with Microsoft software for messaging,
collaboration, social computing, and unified communications to maximize
workforce productivity and drive greater business value.
From a strategic perspective, the next generation workplace shifts how IT
services are delivered from a focus on products and product roadmaps to one
based on business objectives and the capabilities that employees need to
achieve those goals. This enables companies to connect people, processes,
and technology in a way that improves productivity, efficiency, and operational
costs—for example, by helping employees work together more easily,
communicate better across geographic boundaries, and assign work to the
most appropriate location.
“The next generation workplace isn’t just about technology or tools,” says Bob
Hersch, Global Managing Director for the Workplace Technology and
Collaboration Practice at Accenture. “It’s about setting a strategic plan that
aligns a client’s workplace environment to its business objectives, so that the
workplace delivers the greatest value. Service levels and productivity increase
through customized integration of processes and tools, and costs are lower
because hardware and software are configured precisely to business roles.”
Technology components of the next generation workplace are constantly
changing as new ones become available. “Contrary to what the name may
imply, the next generation workplace isn’t about what’s coming in the future,”
says Hersch. “Instead, it’s a conversation with clients about how they can take
BACKGROUND
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 2
advantage of the technologies that are available today to lower costs and
increase workplace productivity.”
Toward that end, with growing interest among enterprises in the benefits of
cloud computing, Accenture and Avanade are adapting the next generation
workplace to include the Microsoft Business Productivity Online (BPOS) Suite.
The remainder of this document examines the “How and Why” behind that
effort to promote BPOS as an alternative to traditional, on-premise
implementations of Microsoft messaging and collaboration solutions.
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 3
Members of today’s enterprise workforce must remain productive wherever
they are, whenever the work demands. Teams are often virtual and globally
dispersed, forming and disbanding as needs dictate, and include contractors or
employees of other companies. At the same time, business leaders face major
pressures to cut costs, maintain flexible cost structures, address security risks,
and maximize the use of scarce resources—all in the face of rapidly changing
markets, continued globalization, and an always-on business environment.
Cloud computing—the dynamic provisioning of software from third parties over
a network—provides an attractive new option for addressing these challenges.
By allowing companies to access IT-based services such as infrastructure,
development, applications, and business processes over the Internet, a cloud-
based model provides rapid acquisition, low to zero capital investment,
relatively low operating costs, and variable pricing that is tied directly to use.
“Cloud computing’s promise of rapid, pay-as-you-go scalability is immensely
attractive to CIOs who are under pressure to do more with less,” says Aziz
Virani, Executive Vice President of Global Technologies and Solutions at
Avanade. “Companies not only are looking at cloud computing as a means to
cut costs, but also as way of accelerating deployment and freeing internal
resources to focus on adding value in new ways.”
Continues Virani, “Therein lies the lure of cloud computing. A recent survey1 of
more than 500 C‐level executives and IT decision makers shows that
companies around the world are becoming more familiar and comfortable with
cloud computing as a viable model for technology adoption, with huge
increases in those who are testing or have plans to implement such solutions. I
rarely meet a CIO who doesn’t want to understand his or her options in this
area.”
Accenture is seeing the same trend. “Companies are considering cloud
computing because it accelerates deployment, conserves resources, and
provides an attractive option to the up-front investment of capital,” says Hersch.
“However, like any disruptive technology, it poses new challenges as well as
benefits. Clients are curious, but they’re also cautious in that they want to first
understand the economic model, support model, and associated risks.”
1 Global Survey of Cloud Computing, September 2009, Avanade.
THE LURE OF CLOUD
COMPUTING
“A recent survey of more than
500 C‐level executives and IT
decision makers shows that
companies around the world are
becoming more familiar and
comfortable with cloud computing
as a viable model for technology
adoption….I rarely meet a CIO
who doesn’t want to understand
his or her options in this area.”
- Aziz Virani, Executive Vice President, Global Technologies and Solutions, Avanade
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 4
Adds Virani, “Many CIOs understand the benefits of cloud computing, but aren’t
sure where to start or how to make the transition. It reminds me of the
offshoring trend a few years ago, in that everybody wants to know what others
are doing, what’s the first application they should outsource, and how to best go
about it. That’s where Avanade and Accenture can help, and we believe the
opportunity is large enough that we’re making significant investments in cloud
computing.”
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 5
With companies looking for a low-risk way to dip their toes into cloud
computing, many CIOs are asking the same question: Where do we start?
“CIients are worried about security, disruptions to users, and maximizing ROI—
all while getting the right capabilities into users’ hands,” says Hersch. “As with
any disruptive technology, to minimize risk and maximize the rewards, potential
new solutions must be evaluated carefully.”
For many Accenture and Avanade clients, the Microsoft BPOS Suite—
Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office
Communications Online—is a good candidate for starting down the road to
cloud computing. “BPOS is a great option for clients that already have in-house
implementations of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Live Meeting, or
Office Communications Server,” says Hersch. “It’s even more attractive for
clients looking to implement those solutions for the first time, in that they can be
deployed faster and with lower up-front costs.”
Continues Hersch, “Remember that the next generation workplace is about
helping clients best take advantage of what exists today. Most organizations
are already running Microsoft messaging and collaboration software, or are
thinking about deploying it. The fundamental value of the next generation
workplace hasn’t changed—there’s just a new delivery option, with a different
cost model and some very attractive benefits. And from a solution provider
perspective, there are many new client conversations—and potential client
engagements—that are enabled by that new delivery option.”
Many of the reasons that Accenture and Avanade recommend BPOS for cloud
services are the same reasons that enterprises prefer Microsoft technology for
in-house deployments. “Other companies may be positioning their online
services against BPOS, but those products lack the familiar user experience
and are generally less enterprise-ready,” says Virani. “By far, Microsoft has the
fuller, more robust, and more mature suite. And workers are already productive
with Microsoft software, so there’s no need to retrain them. Finally, software
such as Microsoft Exchange Server was designed for the enterprise, whereas
other online offerings have their roots in the consumer world.”
Virani sees integration as another strong advantage that BPOS provides for
today’s modern enterprise. “BPOS services are based on the same architecture
as in-house deployments of those products, which eliminates the need to
duplicate core IT services and ensures more seamless integration with internal
applications and those of business partners,” he says. “Microsoft .NET is a
proven means of integration across the company’s software stack, regardless
of whether solution components are running on-premises or in the cloud. I can’t
imagine achieving the same level of integration between other services running
in the cloud and a company’s internal, Windows-based systems.”
A LOGICAL FIRST STEP
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 6
A set of messaging and collaboration solutions hosted by Microsoft and
delivered via a subscription model, Microsoft Business Productivity Online
Services (BPOS) are designed to give businesses streamlined communication
and collaboration along with high availability, comprehensive security, and
simplified IT management. Businesses benefit from rapid deployment and
always up-to-date technologies, freeing internal IT resources from day-to-day
administration and reducing the need for infrastructure investments. In addition,
BPOS services can be integrated with each other and with on-premises
solutions to enable seamless, standardized processes and workflows.
Key capabilities provided by the Business Productivity Online Suite include:
E-mail and calendar functions. Exchange Online includes advanced e-
mail, calendar, contact, and task management features—including spam
filtering, anti-virus protection, and synchronization of mobile devices. The
service can be accessed using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and
Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, which enables users to access
their e-mail messages using almost any Web browser.
Document collaboration, shared workspaces, and social computing.
SharePoint Online enables users to share and work together on
documents, maintain version control for shared documents, create
intranet sites to manage projects and project workflows, post calendar
information. Users can also take advantage of social computing features,
such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, activity feeds, social and taxonomy tags,
and message boards.
Web conferencing. Office Live Meeting enables users to hold online
meetings with colleagues, customers, and partners in real time.
Participants can convene online to share documents, ask questions, work
on a virtual "whiteboard," and talk to each other during the meeting.
IM and Presence Awareness. Office Communications Online delivers
instant messaging (IM) and presence functionality to enable real-time,
person-to-person communication via text, voice, and video. Workers can
quickly detect a colleague's availability and connect rapidly using a
reliable, security-enhanced IM solution.
The BPOS suite also includes comprehensive support for migration, e-mail
coexistence, and system administration. In addition, BPOS provides an online
Administration Center for importing user accounts, migrating e-mail accounts,
creating distribution lists and SharePoint site collections, and submitting service
requests to Microsoft Online Services Technical Support.
BPOS: AN OVERVIEW
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 7
Offerings for Information Workers and Deskless Workers
To support workforce segmentation, BPOS is offered as two different suites:
Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which provides a full-
featured desktop experience for information workers
Business Productivity Online Deskless Worker Suite, which is delivered
as a Web-only experience for workers who do not require the processing
power and abilities of a full desktop client, such as salespeople in retail
stores, workers on the factory floor, and so on. This provides a cost-
effective means of providing these workers with only the capabilities that
they need, rather than having to take a one-size-fits-all approach.
Significant Business Advantages
Through cloud-based delivery, BPOS provides users with access to the latest
Microsoft messaging and collaboration tools while helping to relieve the burden
of deploying, managing, and maintaining internal systems. Costly deployment
and time-consuming maintenance are avoided, freeing up IT budgets and
personnel for initiatives that can deliver true competitive advantage. Compared
to on-premises deployments, key advantages provided by BPOS include:
Enhanced operational flexibility. Through cloud-based delivery, BPOS
provides rapid deployment and scalability to meet evolving business
needs. Monthly fees are predictable, with the BPOS subscription model
enabling companies to move capital expenditures (CAPEX) into
operational expenditures (OPEX). As a result, internal IT resources are
freed to focus on more strategic work.
Always up to date., Technologies delivered through the cloud always
remain up-to-date as new versions become available. In addition, as new
services and capabilities are introduced, clients can subscribe to them
without major additional investments in training or infrastructure.
Improved capability. Worker productivity is enhanced through a rich,
integrated, turnkey solution for e-mail, instant messaging, social
computing, Web conferencing, and team collaboration. These streamlined
applications improve agility and innovation, with enterprises able to easily
adopt and exploit new services as BPOS continues to grow and evolve.
Security and reliability. Security and data hygiene are enhanced
through multilayer antivirus scanning and spam filtering. BPOS is hosted
at geographically redundant data centers, with Cybertrust and SAS70
compliance. Reliability is ensured through 99.9 percent scheduled service
uptime and supported by a financially-backed service level agreement.
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 8
“There are many advantages to BPOS, one of which is that it’s more cost-
effective and financially predictable,” says Virani.
Adds Hersch, ”For many enterprises, what’s even more attractive is that IT staff
are freed from everyday system management—for example, keeping Exchange
Server running and Active Directory clean. BPOS provides a way to offload
those day-to-day management chores so that internal IT staffers who know the
business can focus on new challenges and opportunities.”
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 9
To support growing client interest in cloud computing and offer an attractive
hosted option for messaging and collaboration, Accenture and Avanade are
augmenting their service offerings to help clients determine if BPOS is right for
them, facilitate the transformation, and provide extended service management
around core BPOS services—all geared to helping clients maximize business
value.
Assessment and Planning Services
Companies contemplating a move to BPOS must consider several factors up-
front. Assessment services are designed to help companies evaluate the
business case and infrastructure impacts of a BPOS migration and deployment,
helping clients answer questions such as:
How do I know if BPOS is right for my business and my end user
community?
How do I effectively migrate to BPOS while minimizing end user and
legacy application impacts?
How can I get the most from my BPOS investment?
Transition and Migration Services
Transition services help prepare clients and the environment for the integration,
migration, and deployment of BPOS. Those services can include:
Active Directory Cleanup and Standardization, as required to minimize
future issues and simplify the synchronization of the directory with BPOS.
Mailbox Migration, including planning and migration services based on a
phased approach and realistic timelines to rapidly deliver a positive ROI.
Application Migration and Integration—including architectural design,
phased implementation, and application lifecycle management to ensure
effective migration and integration of legacy line-of-business applications.
User Communications and Training, as required to help ensure a
smooth transition to the new BPOS environment.
Operations and Support Services
Operations and service management provide additional, ongoing management
and support capabilities, as may help clients to fully benefit from their new
BPOS solutions. These services can include:
SharePoint Center of Excellence, an Accenture and Avanade-staffed
center of excellence within client organizations, as need to help facilitate
ACCENTURE AND
AVANADE SERVICES FOR
BPOS
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 10
the delivery and governance of enterprise portal and collaboration
solutions based on SharePoint Online.
Directory Management—including administration, engineering, and
integration support for a client’s Active Directory, LDAP, or other directory
technologies.
Service Management and Governance, as required to integrate,
coordinate, and enable consistent support across all IT infrastructure
services delivered to clients.
Service Desk support, providing a single point of contact for BPOS-
related end-user incidents or requests—including full level-one helpdesk
staffing, if needed.
Internal Sales and Delivery Readiness
Accenture and Avanade are making major internal investments around BPOS.
“However, the required investment isn’t as large as you may think,” says
Hersch. “When you look at it from a top-down perspective, we’re simply
extending our existing next generation workplace initiative to include both on-
premises and BPOS delivery methods. We’re refreshing our sales campaigns,
augmenting our skills and capabilities, and adapting existing methods,
estimators, and accelerators to support BPOS as well as on-premises
deployment.”
Virani echoes that sentiment, stating that a large part of the effort is in bringing
the Avanade workforce up to speed to proactively sell and deliver BPOS. “We
have hundreds of people who are already experts in the various technologies,
and have been sending those personnel to Microsoft training sessions on
BPOS,” he says. “We believe the business opportunity around BPOS is huge,
so we’re making significant investments and setting concrete goals with respect
to getting the BPOS message out to clients. Of course, we were also early in
getting certified as a Microsoft BPOS Advisor.”
Beyond preparing their people, both companies are enhancing their technology
toolkits to support the delivery of BPOS. “We’ve invested many millions of
dollars over the past years building tools and methodologies to support Notes-
to-Exchange migrations, Active Directory management, SharePoint
architectures, and so on, and we’re currently adapting those tools for BPOS,”
says Virani. “In fact, we’ve just approved the building of an offshore BPOS
migration factory, as a means of doing migration work at scale.”
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 11
Accenture and Avanade are already seeing strong interest in BPOS, with client
engagements at all stages of the sales and delivery pipeline. “Some clients are
actively coming to us with an interest in BPOS, and in other cases we’re
bringing the option to them,” says Hersch. “Either way, it leads to the same
options and opportunities. What’s important is that we need to be the first to
have those conversations with clients, before someone else does.”
With BPOS already available in 22 countries2, the sales pipeline is growing
rapidly. Microsoft is tracking BPOS opportunities associated with Accenture and
Avanade in its CRM system, representing more than a million seats. Avanade
is tracking a global sales pipeline of some 30 to 40 enterprise customers, each
with between 3,000 and 70,000 potential seats. Accenture is tracking more than
20 opportunities in the United States alone, representing some 1.3 million
BPOS seats. “Almost every CIO wants to be educated on BPOS, and we’re
actively engaging with clients as trusted advisors,” says Hersch.
Of the BPOS Services, two are seeing exceptionally strong market interest:
Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. “Most companies already run
Exchange Server, and Exchange Online provides an attractive option for
transitioning that existing functionality to the cloud,” says Mark Kashman,
Technical Product Manager for SharePoint Online at Microsoft. “On the other
hand, SharePoint is a great example of how BPOS can accelerate the
deployment of new capabilities within the enterprise. SharePoint Server is the
fastest-growing server product in Microsoft’s history, with more than 17,000
customers and 100 million plus seats—and along with strong interest in
SharePoint comes increasing demand for choice from a delivery perspective. It
typically takes weeks to months for an in-house deployment of SharePoint
Server, but SharePoint Online can be deployed in a matter of hours or days—at
the low cost of just a few dollars per seat per month. Of course, companies that
deploy SharePoint Online today also will benefit from all of the great new
features to be introduced in SharePoint 2010.”
In addition, companies are evaluating hybrid deployments to get the best of
both worlds: appropriate control over their data together with true economies of
scale. “Co-existence of SharePoint Server on-premises and SharePoint Online
2 BPOS services are currently available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
EARLY MARKET
TRACTION
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 12
will drive a whole new range of scenarios as customers seek the value of things
like federated search, line-of-business connectivity, data aggregation, and
more,” says Kashman.
Hersch also expects many new BPOS rollouts to be hybrid deployments to
start, with companies transitioning either part of the workforce or a subset of
functionality to BPOS while the rest remains supported on-premises. “Very few
companies are likely to jump in with both feet,” says Hersch. “Most likely,
companies will transition a part of the organization to BPOS, or host e-mail
services in the cloud while continuing to run Office Communications Server or
SharePoint Server internally. In fact, we encourage CIOs to adopt a phased
approach, in that it makes it easier to assess early issues and quantify the
benefits.”
Adds Virani, “Our clients have hundreds of enterprise applications, so they
won’t be migrating to the cloud in a wholesale fashion anytime soon,” he says.
“That said, hybrid deployments are already a way of life, with most clients
already taking advantage of software running outside of the data center. This
plays nicely to the integration advantages that BPOS provides over other cloud-
based services—and to our strengths in helping clients decide what to move to
the cloud and how to integrate those services back into the data center.”
Talking to Customers About Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) 13
With growing interest among CIOs in cloud computing, BPOS represents a
significant opportunity for Accenture and Avanade to assist clients who are
looking for a trusted advisor to help evaluate its suitability, assist with migration,
and provide ongoing support. “We need to remain market-driven, and there isn’t
a CIO out there who doesn’t want to understand the options around cloud
computing,” says Virani. “BPOS is a great first step toward cloud computing for
many clients and, as such, poses a tremendous business opportunity for us.
However, with opportunity comes accountability, which is why we’re gearing-up
to provide the guidance and expertise that clients have come to expect.”
Adds Hersch, “Cloud computing is a fundamental long-term shift in how
technology services will be delivered in the 21st century. Some may perceive
the investments we’re making in BPOS as a risk, but we believe those
investments are essential to Accenture and Avanade remaining ahead of the
curve—and trusted advisors to many of the world’s leading companies.”
With expertise in business process engineering, migration and implementation
experience, and one of the highest concentrations of Microsoft expertise in the
world, Accenture and Avanade are in a unique position to capitalize on BPOS,
which already boasts more than 1 million seats. “We help clients make
informed decisions in choosing the best, most appropriate capabilities for their
businesses,” says Hersch. “And when it comes to delivery, we’ve completed
more than 20 million mailbox migrations, more than 1,000 Active Directory
implementations, and have vast experience transitioning work from on-premise
to an outsourced environment. Given those strengths and the strong, growing
interest in cloud computing, the decision to embrace BPOS was an easy one.”
For More Information
More information on the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite can be
found at: http://www.microsoft.com/online/business-productivity.mspx
More information on Accenture’s Workplace Technology and Collaboration
Practice can be found at:
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Technology/Infrastructure_Solutions/Workpla
ce_Technology/default.htm
More information on Avanade’s BPOS practice and services can be found at:
http://www.thecloudadvantage.com
CONCLUSION