Overland Solutions, Inc. was interested in using cloud computing to help it streamline IT management; develop a more pragmatic disaster-recovery strategy; and provide its highly mobile and widely distributed field staff of auditors, inspectors, and sales representatives with the collaboration and messaging tools they needed. After evaluating the Google Apps suite of online productivity tools, the company instead adopted the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, a collection of email, instant messaging, web-conferencing, and collaboration solutions delivered as managed services through Microsoft Online Services. By delivering collaboration tools to its employees online, Overland Solutions can help keep its field staff better connected, deliver advanced yet familiar tools to more employees, reduce its IT management burden, and enhance the return on its IT investment.

1. Microsoft Online Services
Customer Solution Case Study
Premium Audit Firm Chooses Microsoft
Online Services to Upgrade Messaging
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Insurance industry Auditing Business Productivity Online Standard Suite with Office
2010 installed locally, we saw that Microsoft was the
Customer Profile
With more than 1,000 employees and
operations throughout North America,
David R. Robinson, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Overland Solutions
Overland Solutions, Inc. provides auditing
and inspection services to insurance
companies and other large organizations.
Overland Solutions, Inc. was interested in using cloud computing
Business Situation to help it streamline IT management; develop a more pragmatic
Overland Solutions wanted to streamline
IT management, develop a less costly
disaster-‐recovery strategy; and provide its highly mobile and
disaster-‐recovery strategy, and provide widely distributed field staff of auditors, inspectors, and sales
its field employees with the collaboration
and messaging tools they needed.
representatives with the collaboration and messaging tools they
needed. After evaluating the Google Apps suite of online
Solution
Overland Solutions adopted the
productivity tools, the company instead adopted the Microsoft
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, a collection of
Standard Suite to deliver an entire
package of communication and
email, instant messaging, web-‐conferencing, and collaboration
collaboration solutions to its uniquely solutions delivered as managed services through Microsoft
structured workforce.
Online Services. By delivering collaboration tools to its
Benefits employees online, Overland Solutions can help keep its field
More connected workforce
Expanded, familiar environment
staff better connected, deliver advanced yet familiar tools to
Streamlined IT management more employees, reduce its IT management burden, and
Enhanced return on investment
enhance the return on its IT investment.

2. Situation spreadsheets created with Microsoft Office
Overland Solutions, Inc. provides premium Word or Office Excel spreadsheet software.
attractive offering from a audit services, property inspections, and If employees needed to manipulate a
loss-‐control services for the insurance document or spreadsheet, they often used
pricing perspective, and industry, government agencies, and other OpenOffice software.
the Gmail messaging large organizations. Based in Overland Park,
Kansas, Overland Solutions operates
solution seemed to work. throughout the United States, Canada,
Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The generate many of their own Word
But we thought Google company has more than 1,000 employees documents or Excel spreadsheets, and
had some serious and generates annual revenue of more purchasing another 750 Office licenses
than U.S.$75 million. would have been a significant expense that
limitations, such as
Almost 75 percent of Overland Solutions
inadequate offline access employees operate outside of the Overland Solutions managed its email
to productivity messaging environment with Microsoft
offices, working autonomously at customer Exchange Server 2003. Office employees
sites. Because they are highly mobile and used the Microsoft Office Outlook
widely distributed, Overland Solutions sales messaging and collaboration client, while
David R. Robinson, Senior Vice President
and Chief Information Officer, Overland representatives, premium auditors, and most field employees accessed email using
Solutions inspectors are often disconnected from the Microsoft Outlook Web Access. The system
company network, which can make it worked well, but the company incurred
challenging to efficiently maintain an costs associated with managing its own
effective communication and collaboration messaging infrastructure. It also had to
environment. develop a disaster-‐recovery strategy to
ensure communication continuity.
regularly find themselves
Internet con
Robinson, Senior Vice President and Chief pensive to prepare for
Information Officer at Overland Solutions.
to worry about my email environment in
makes it much more complex for our IT the middle of trying to recover all my other
shop to deploy software and manage mission-‐
The company was interested in using cloud
The company runs its desktop and portable computing technology resources hosted
computers with the Windows XP off-‐premises and delivered as online
Professional operating system, and services to help it reduce the manage-‐
employees working in the Overland ment burden on its IT staff, and to help it
Solutions headquarters and branch offices develop a disaster-‐recovery strategy that
have used Microsoft Office 2003 and Office would be less expensive and complex to
2007 productivity software. The compan implement.
750 field employees mostly use
applications built in-‐house by the Overland Most of all, Overland Solutions needed a
Solutions IT team. These applications more efficient way to provide its field
include viewers for opening documents or employees with the collaboration and

3. messaging tools they needed. Parretta, Managing Partner at Valorem
challenge is that we have a highly mobile
collaboration capabilities Solutions how the Business Productivity
interested in a cloud-‐based messaging Online Standard Suite matched the
and the full, rich solution that could help them to build
experience of Office,
Overland Solutions decided to replace its
instead of a very limited Solution existing on-‐premises messaging
In 2010, Overland Solutions began looking infrastructure with Microsoft Exchange
environment with for a solution that would help it reduce the Online, a hosted messaging service that it
administrative burden and cost associated would no longer have to manage itself or
with its messaging infrastructure. The have to recover if a power loss, fire, or
David R. Robinson, Senior Vice President company initially evaluated the Google other event caused its data center to fail.
and Chief Information Officer, Overland Apps suite of online productivity tools, And, by adopting the Business Productivity
Solutions
letting 12 employees use Google Apps for Online Standard Suite, the company added
almost three months. additional capabilities with Microsoft Office
Communications Online instant messaging,
Office Live Meeting web conferencing, and
pricing perspective, and the Gmail the SharePoint Online collaboration and
document-‐sharing service.
gle had
some serious limitations, such as Most significantly, Valorem Consulting
inadequate offline access to productivity showed Overland Solutions how Business
applications. For example, at that time you Productivity Online Standard Suite could
could not work offline on the Google Apps work with local installations of Microsoft
spread sheets. Office Standard 2010 to extend the
capabilities of Office 2010 to its entire
Overland Solutions began working with its workforce in a way that made sense
Microsoft account team and Valorem
Consulting, a member of the Microsoft Apps to the Microsoft Business Productivity
Partner Network, to evaluate other cloud Online Standard Suite with Office 2010
solutions. With offices in Kansas City and St. installed locally, we saw that Microsoft was
Louis, Missouri, Valorem Consulting
specializes in delivering collaboration, Microsoft, we got collaboration capabilities
business intelligence, and productivity and the full, rich experience of Office,
solutions that help provide strategic value instead of a very limited environment with
for its customers using both on-‐premises
and cloud technology.
According to Robinson, employees at
Valorem demonstrated how Overland Overland Solutions are familiar with
Solutions could use the Microsoft Business Outlook, and the company was concerned
Productivity Online Standard Suite, offered that adopting Gmail would have involved a
through Microsoft Online Services, to significant change to the user interface of
deliver an entire package of collaboration
solutions to its uniquely structured very comfortable
folders and tagging are organized

4. differently in Gmail, and introducing our keep its workforce connected to the
employees to a completely different tool company and to each other.
Business Productivity
Online Standard Suite, By November 2010, Overland Solutions had can use Office Communications Online to
migrated more than 1,000 mailboxes to talk to his or her regional manager or ask a
Exchange Online and moved its existing
collaboration Windows SharePoint Services environment matter where they are working from, field
to SharePoint Online. The company initially employees can use Office Live Meeting to
infrastructure across the deployed Office Live Meeting and Office collaborate with customers, colleagues, and
entire organization for Communications Online to IT staff partners in real time. They can use these
computers, and then it began introducing new tools to find opportunities to be more
within 10 percent of both solutions to all company employees at productive and deliver more value to our
the beginning of March 2011.
what it cost us before to
reach less than a quarter The company expects to have the Business Expanded, Familiar Environment
Productivity Online Standard Suite By delivering a collaboration and
of our workforce. We deployed throughout the organization by productivity tool set with a familiar
the end of June 2011. It will install interface, Overland Solutions can let its
anticipate significantly Microsoft Office Standard 2010 on all employees continue using the experience
improved ROI. company computers and simultaneously and still deliver
upgrade its PC environment to the expanded capabilities to everybody in the
David R. Robinson, Senior Vice President Windows 7 operating system during its organization. Now field employees can use
and Chief Information Officer, Overland regularly scheduled computer-‐refresh cycle. the same tools in Office 2010 that
Solutions
employees in the company headquarters
Benefits and branch offices can use.
By adopting the Business Productivity
Online Standard Suite, Overland Solutions Being able to use Office 2010 to open and
can help keep its widely distributed and manipulate documents and spreadsheets is
mobile field staff better connected, deliver a great productivity opportunity for our
advanced yet familiar tools to more
employees, streamline IT management, and give them the tools that make sense for the
enhance its return on investment. business, and do it in a way that makes
financial sense as well. We had already
More Connected Workforce planned to upgrade computers in the
Overland Solutions anticipates that by offices to Office 2010, and now we can
delivering new communication and provide the identical messaging and
collaboration tools to everybody in the productivity environment for every
organization, its highly mobile and widely
distributed employees will be able to work
more effectively while maintaining their Streamlined IT Management
autonomy at customer sites. For instance, With cloud-‐based messaging and
by adding tools such as Office collaboration solutions provided as
Communications Online and Office Live managed services, the IT department at
Meeting to traditional email and combining Overland Solutions has reduced its
them all with features such as presence infrastructure-‐management burden. It no
indication, Overland Solutions can help longer has to administer an on-‐premises

5. Exchange Server or SharePoint
environment, and it no longer has to install messaging, web conferencing, or
take our deep on-‐ and maintain third-‐party instant-‐messaging
or web-‐conferencing solutions, which
premises expertise and reduces costs and frees IT staff to focus on
layer it with advanced Productivity Online Stand
applications. expanded our collaboration infrastructure
cloud technology. So we across the entire organization for within 10
The company also now has more peace of percent of what it cost us before to reach
can take on more mind and will save money on its disaster-‐ less than a quarter of our workforce. We
projects, complete them -‐
point objective for email is 24 hours, and
quickly, and deliver Robinson and his team knew that to meet Parretta agrees that the Business
that objective in the event of a major data-‐ Productivity Online Standard Suite offers
higher value to our center disaster would require a level of on-‐ better opportunities for companies like
premises redundancy that would be Overland Solutions and for IT partners such
prohibitively expensive and complex to
Dominick Parretta, Managing Partner, manage. In contrast, the Business can take our deep on-‐premises expertise
Valorem Consulting Productivity Online Standard Suite and layer it with advanced cloud
guarantees 99.9 percent uptime, without techno
requiring any extra investment from more projects, complete them quickly, and
Overland Solutions.
email connectivity for my entire enterprise
even if my data center is a smoking hole in
redundancy is already provided by
Microsoft, so we can avoid spending tens
of thousands of dollars for something we
may never need. And if something does
happen, we can focus on recovering our
mission-‐
Enhanced Return on Investment
According to Robinson, Overland Solutions
made the right decision by choosing the
Business Productivity Online Standard Suite
and will receive a higher return on
investment (﴾ROI)﴿ than if it had chosen
Google Apps. He says that, with Microsoft
software, the company has expanded its
messaging, collaboration, and productivity
environments and integrated them
consistently across the entire enterprise at
very little additional cost.

6. For More Information Microsoft Online Services
For more information about Microsoft Microsoft Online Services are business-‐class
products and services, call the Microsoft communication and collaboration solutions
Sales Information Center at (﴾800)﴿ 426-‐ delivered as a subscription service and
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft hosted by Microsoft. With these offerings,
Canada Information Centre at (﴾877)﴿ 568-‐ customers can cost-‐effectively access the
2495. Customers in the United States and most up-‐to-‐date technologies and
Canada who are deaf or hard-‐of-‐hearing immediately benefit from streamlined
can reach Microsoft text telephone communications, simplified management,
(﴾TTY/TDD)﴿ services at (﴾800)﴿ 892-‐5234. and business-‐class reliability and security
Outside the 50 United States and features.
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access For more information, visit:
information using the World Wide Web, www.microsoft.com/online
go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Valorem
Consulting products and services, call
(﴾888)﴿ 660-‐5731 or visit the website at:
www.valoremconsulting.com
For more information about Overland
Solutions, Inc. products and services, call
(﴾877)﴿ 856-‐8599 or visit the website at:
www.olsi.net
Software and Services
Microsoft Online Services
Microsoft Business Productivity
Online Standard Suite
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Standard 2010
Windows 7
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published April 2011