Concentric
With facilities on 3 continents, this global
manufacturer relies on critical email communications to support its
innovative business. In a search for a cost-effective,
easy-to-administer hosted Email and Managed Enterprise BlackBerry
solutions, the company chose Cobweb “...because it just works!” Dan
Hodson, IT Manager, Concentric
Concentric
is an innovator in flow control and fluid power, supplying
proprietary systems and components for trucks, buses and industrial
vehicles worldwide. The company encompasses two technology/product
areas: hydraulics and pumps for diesel engines.
The hydraulics range is supplied under the Haldex brand name and
the pumps are branded Concentric. With facilities in England,
Germany, India, Sweden, China, and two locations in the United
States, the company’s global footprint and employee base must be
supported with innovative communications solutions and technologies
for 24/7 always-on access.
A few years ago, the company underwent a transformation and its
legacy email MS Exchange platform became unavailable. Here, we see
how Concentric turned to Cobweb for reliable, innovative hosted
email and BlackBerry capabilities.
The Challenge
Dan Hodson, IT Manager for Concentric and based at their
Birmingham UK facility, describes the challenges and objectives
that the company faced.
“Recently, we lost our legacy Exchange system due to a
restructuring. We had been relying on another division for our
Email infrastructure and suddenly it was no longer available. We
had to start from scratch.”
Starting from scratch gave Dan the opportunity of looking at all
of the options. “We considered purchasing our own email server and
Exchange, but that option was expensive. Not only would we have to
buy the IT infrastructure, but we’d also have to purchase the
appropriate licenses from Microsoft.”
Dan points out that these initial costs were only part of his
considerations. “We also realized that we’d have to support email
and BlackBerry company users in all seven of our global offices,”
he states.
“We started to ask ourselves some questions: Where do we put the
server if we buy our own? In the United States? Sweden? Here in our
UK office? And once we placed it somewhere, who was going to manage
and administer those services?
What about ongoing support and Disaster
Recovery?
I realized that this new email facility
would have to support the communications requirements for about 600
people and if it went down it could seriously affect the business.
“I also worried that if the service was placed here in the UK, we’d
spend much of our time managing it. I have only one other staff
member in our local IT department. I believed that our IT resources
would be stretched if we purchased such a solution and placed it
here. I began asking myself, ‘Is owning our own site really
viable?’”
The Better Option: Hosted Email
Technology
But Dan also considered other options,
including hosted email platforms. “I conducted some research and
found who the main players were in the hosted email space,” Dan
states. “Our research came down to 2 choices: Cobweb Hosted
Exchange and Microsoft’s email platform.”
But to Dan, Cobweb stood out. “We talked to the people at
Cobweb, got some references, and read some case studies. When we
compared Cobweb’s offering to Microsoft, MS came up short. We found
that Cobweb was used as a test bed by Microsoft for new MS
products. That gave us a great deal of confidence in Cobweb. We
then discovered that mailbox sizes were larger on Cobweb than on
the Microsoft alternative. So there were some noticeable
differences.
“Price was also a factor because price is always a consideration
for us. But we compared the Cobweb price to Microsoft, and also to
owning our own email solution, and recognized that the
longer-termed costs were much smaller with Cobweb Hosted
Exchange.
For instance, an email upgrade is now less expensive, and
because we don’t have to worry about an upgrade, it takes no time
to install and configure it. Cobweb does it all.”
Having considered the advantages of a Cobweb solution, Dan
presented his case for Cobweb Hosted Exchange and Cobweb BlackBerry
to Concentric’s directors. “The final decision to use Cobweb was
made at the highest levels in the company,” Dan states.
“Email is a critical communications tool for us. Lack of email
availability can affect everything from sales to manufacturing, to
the supplier communications process. Concentric directors decided
on Cobweb. And they like their decision.”
The Solution
Today, 565 Concentric employees use Cobweb Hosted Exchange for
email communications. Cobweb Hosted Exchange is a business-class
messaging and collaboration service
designed to help businesses communicate securely, efficiently, and
effectively.
Delivered as a fully managed solution with 24/7 support, and
Internet enabled but utilizing high levels of security and
integrity, Cobweb Hosted Exchange provides a significantly lower
total cost of ownership for messaging and collaboration needs.
“In total we’re using about 2 TBs of email resource with Cobweb,
or about 2 GBs an employee,” Dan states. “The Cobweb solution works
very well. Frankly, it’s rather difficult to
summarize the benefits because that’s always difficult when a
supplier is so good.
In other words, we don’t have many issues, so I don’t phone
Cobweb very often. And when I have had some very small issues, the
Cobweb service team is very responsive to our requests.
‘It does what it says on the tin.’ Cobweb Hosted
Exchange just works. We don’t have to worry about it.
Ever.”
Administration is also painless. “Cobweb Hosted Exchange
requires very little administrative resource or time,” Dan notes.
“It synchronizes with our own Active Directory.
Adding or removing users is quite straightforward and takes only
a few minutes. So only very minimal administration is required. In
fact, it works so well, and with so little effort, that I rarely
have to think about it.”
Managed Enterprise BlackBerry Services
Concentric has also adopted Cobweb’s Managed Enterprise
BlackBerry services to empower BlackBerry communications. Now, 54
Concentric staff located across the company’s global facilities use
the Cobweb BlackBerry service. 
Managed Enterprise BlackBerry services from Cobweb
provide a one-stop, no-compromise, wireless email solution that
allows users to stay connected with access to email, phone, web,
and organiser features on the go.
“The BlackBerry service from Cobweb works seamlessly, and with
few issues,” Dan explains. “The service also provisions easily with
BlackBerry devices. Just turn on the device, access the Cobweb
BlackBerry administrator, take 30 seconds to run through the Cobweb
setup interface, activate the Cobweb service with a password, and
you’re done. It synchs up very quickly and easily.”
Dan highly recommends Cobweb Hosted Exchange and Managed
Enterprise BlackBerry services to other companies. “I recommend
Cobweb because they provide cost-effective, highly reliable,
easy-to-administer services that form a very important part of
Concentric’s communications capabilities. Cobweb takes the
headaches away. Even though we are supporting global staff, email
and BlackBerry communications are something we don’t have to worry
about anymore.”
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