“Office 365 adds huge value to the business and will take the pressure off the IT team when we want to use iPad, iPhone, and Windows devices. Our people working remotely now have flexible access to email.” Brian Lyall, Group IT Development Manager, Renishaw Global manufacturer Renishaw wanted to upgrade its communication and collaboration technology by taking advantage of cloud services. It deployed Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange Online for 3,100 mailboxes, avoiding the need to buy new servers. Renishaw now has mobile connectivity across any device and 25-gigabyte mailboxes for all staff, with unlimited storage. Anywhere access ensures that remote workers can stay connected at all times. Business Needs Renishaw specialises in measurement, motion control, spectroscopy, and precision machining, with manufacturing plants in the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, and India. Listed on the UK Stock Exchange, the firm has over 3,100 staff located at 60 offices in 32 countries, with annual revenue of £332 million (US$500 million). It makes 94 per cent of its sales outside the UK. Renishaw is a highly acquisitive company, interested in expanding its business in different regions worldwide—as a result, it needs secure, reliable communications technology. Until recently, Renishaw was managing its 12 physical communications and collaboration servers running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, which, by 2011, had reached the end of its life cycle. Brian Lyall, Group IT Development Manager, Renishaw, says: “We thought that the cloud would help us respond faster to the growing demands of the business. The company is becoming less centralised in the UK and more regional in structure—moving our communications infrastructure to the cloud would help support this trend. We also wanted to provide users with larger mailboxes than the previous 100-megabyte limit—our people were becoming frustrated with the storage restrictions and were starting to use other services.” The key question for Renishaw was whether to use the cloud or upgrade the physical infrastructure, replacing its 12 geographically dispersed servers. “Moving to the cloud was financially sensible and it would capture the future upgrade cycle without additional costs,” says Lyall. “We spent a lot of time looking at the risks involved. The previous server footprint was expensive to maintain and would involve capital expenditure to replace. Other considerations that favoured the cloud were that we wanted to look at introducing a bring-your-own-device policy and better support working from remote locations.” Solution Renishaw corporate IT uses largely Microsoft products, so from the beginning it was looking for a Microsoft cloud solution to integrate with its existing technologies rather than introduce a new vendor platform. Total cost of ownership was a major consideration. Microsoft Cloud Partner Minttulip recommended a hybrid mechanism for the introduction of Microsoft Office 365. It Customer: Renishaw Website: www.renishaw.com Customer Size: 100–5,000 Country or Region: United Kingdom Industry: Manufacturing—Measurement and control instruments Partner: Minttulip Customer Profile A world leader in engineering technologies, United Kingdom–based Renishaw applies its core skills in measurement and healthcare. It is rapidly expanding in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Software and Services Microsoft Office 365 − Microsoft Exchange Online Microsoft Office − Microsoft Lync 2010 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange − Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Technologies − Active Directory Federation Services For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies Microsoft Office 365 Customer Solution Case Study Renishaw Moves to the Cloud to Ensure Workers Have Online Access Anywhere