Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics CRM to be delivered from Australian datacentres

Kiwi businesses are set to benefit from Microsoft Corp’s plans, announced today, to deliver Microsoft's cloud productivity suite, Office 365 – and business application – Dynamics CRM Online – from Australian data centres by the end of March, 2015.

Following the October launch of Microsoft Azure services from Australia, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online will soon be delivered from two existing data centres in New South Wales and Victoria.

“Customers and partners tell us that our productivity and business application services, delivered from Australia, together with world-class offerings from our local partners will help New Zealanders do more and achieve more - and that is what counts at the end of the day,” said John Case, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Office Division, who is in New Zealand tomorrow.

Microsoft New Zealand’s Managing Director, Paul Muckleston, says offering these services to New Zealand companies from Australian data centres will provide local customers with faster performance, offer geo-redundant back-up and help address data residency considerations, particularly in sectors such as Healthcare, Education, Government and Financial Services.

“New Zealand Office 365 customers are assured that their data will only reside in the Australian data centres,” says Muckleston.

“As we look ahead to a more innovative future, we’re investing to help New Zealand businesses become smarter, more connected and competitive, getting all the benefits of cloud computing, so they can do more and achieve more any time, any place, from any device,” he says.

A wide variety of New Zealand organisations are using Office 365 and CRM Online as they look to enable mobile working, better collaboration and connectivity, enhance customer service and drive efficiencies. Some examples include: 

• Beca is one of New Zealand’s largest engineering services, providing consultancy, architecture, planning, project and cost management, land information, valuations and software services. The company uses Office 365 tools such as Lync and Yammer for staff collaboration and are looking forward to the lower latency benefits of running these services through the new Australia-based data centres.  

• The Icehouse is a business growth centre that includes business growth programmes for SMEs; a business incubator for start-ups; and New Zealand’s largest group of Angel Investors. CEO Andrew Hamilton wanted to enable his team to be more mobile, connected and productive, so moved the team on to Office 365. They use laptops, tablets and mobiles, all on the Windows platform, and are now able to access work on any device, wherever they are. Hamilton says the move has greatly improved productivity and increased security and seamless backups across platforms. 

• House of Travel is one of New Zealand’s leading travel agencies with 80 stores across the country. Rik Roberts, Solutions Architect for the company says the principal drivers for the shift to Office 365 were the many new features including improvements to mobile and remote access, and a familiar yet modern interface, with the ability to scale as more staff came on board. He says House of Travel phased in the migration store by store and the benefits were apparent instantly, with staff able to collaborate using Sharepoint, and hold training via Lync. 

• Inspired Accountants is a small accountancy firm with six team members who all operate from different locations around Auckland, working from home, client offices or on the move. Director Craig Weston says the company looked into using Google Apps but quickly realised Office 365 was a better option, because they already used existing Microsoft products and wanted to minimise the change disruption. Weston says Office 365 has allowed their team to focus on what is really important – using great technology to do the best they can for clients. 

• Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) provides education for up to 26,000 students a year, with over 950 staff teaching over six locations in the greater Waikato. They needed customer insights to help convert enquiries into enrolments, but needed to know what their customers – their students – needed. With Dynamics CRM, Wintec was able track their customers’ touchpoints, such as events and activities they were attending, and shape best strategies for lead capture from this information. The result was Wintec significantly exceeded its forecast enrolment targets. Wintec now has 150 different CRM users across the business – in faculty, business development and international student management. 

• Icebreaker is one of New Zealand’s leading clothing brands, and the global leader of the merino wool clothing category. With over 2000 customers and 14 retail stores around the world, and an e-commerce channel in the US and Canada, the company has driven significant productivity across the business by choosing Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Online solution, which allows the company to efficiently manage inventory, their customer database and reporting across a single, integrated platform.