Apra engineering realizes 150 hours in annual productivity gains with windows® 7 professional case study

1. Windows 7
Customer Solution Case Study
APRA Engineering Realizes 150 Hours in
Annual Productivity Gains with Windows ® 7
Overview “Windows 7 simply never crashes.”
Country or Region: India
Ashu Raina, IT Director, APRA Engineering Services
Industry: Automotive Engineering Services
Customer Profile
APRA provides methyl gas conversion
systems to after-market automotive
customers throughout Gurgaon, India.
Based in Gurgaon, India, APRA Engineering Services is a leader in
Business Situation
APRA’s accounting and procurement methyl gas conversion systems in the region. Its staff of 25,
department began experiencing significant supported by a small operations team responsible for
productivity losses due to sluggish system
performance, inefficiency, and downtime to administration, accounting, and IT rely on computing systems to get
slowed problem resolution. their jobs done.
Solution
With Windows 7, APRA has improved Recently, APRA began experiencing significant productivity losses
productivity by boosting system
performance, speeding up everyday tasks due to system crashes, slow boot up, inefficient business
and file searches, and reducing time-to- processes, and downtime due to desk-side IT support – all of which
resolution for help desk issues.
were slowing operations and impacting profitability. The company
Benefits needed a solution that would improve system performance and
 150 desk-side help hrs saved
 Staff productivity up ~20%
reliability, and increase productivity.
 ~10 minutes faster boot-ups
By deploying the Windows® 7 Professional operating system, APRA
improved staff productivity by speeding up access to information
and improving system reliability while simplifying daily tasks and
reducing time-to-resolution for help desk issues.

2. “I believe Windows will Situation According to Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive
APRA engineering retrofits vehicles with Officer of Microsoft® Corporation, Windows 7
remain at the center of Tartranie CNG conversion kits, to enable includes functionality that businesses like
people's technological them to run on propane rather than gas, for a APRA are looking for. “I believe Windows will
cleaner running engine that saves money. remain at the center of people's technological
solar system. We're The profitability of the company depends solar system,” he says. “We're putting in all
putting in all the right heavily on the efficiency of its support the right ingredients: simplicity, reliability and
operations, so when the company’s speed.”
ingredients: simplicity, accounting and procurement organizations
reliability and speed.” began experiencing significant productivity Benefits
losses due to sluggish system performance
Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer, and process inefficiencies, it realized it Speeding Up Performance, Improving
Microsoft Corporation needed to solve its problems quickly. Reliability
Windows 7 is a more responsive operating
“Our staff members waited 10-12 minutes system that enables users to work more and
just to start work, as systems booted up wait less. The sFaster feature enables users
slowly and were crashing more often,” says to start using their PCs quickly, with faster
Ashu Raina, IT Director at APRA. “We were startup, shutdown, sleep, and resume from
losing valuable time every week.” standby. “We used to wait 10-12 minutes for
boot up with our legacy operating systems,”
Excessive time was also being spent on recalls Raina. “With Windows 7, systems boot
redundant tasks such as manipulating up in less than a minute, and employees get
documents, and searching for documents to work faster.”
and files, while IT support calls were resulting
in 3-4 hours of employee downtime every In addition, APRA’s users now experience
week. The company needed a solution that fewer interruptions due to the increased
would increase efficiency, and productivity, system reliability of Windows 7, and APRA
while reducing downtime. APRA found the could not be more pleased. “Windows 7
solution it was looking for with Windows 7. simply never crashes,” says Raina.
Solution Simplifying Everyday Tasks
APRA deployed Windows 7 in 2009. Windows Windows 7 desktop personalization features
7 increases system performance by making increase productivity by speeding up
“We used to wait 10-12 PCs faster, more reliable, and more redundant tasks such as comparing
minutes for boot up with responsive. Employees get more done as documents, and copying data from one file to
Windows 7 simplifies time-consuming, another, and searching for files and
our legacy operating everyday tasks – so they spend less time documents used every day.
systems. With Windows 7, searching for and manipulating information,
and more time on core business activities. Windows 7 Aero® Enhancements enable
systems boot up in less Powerful diagnostic and troubleshooting users to instantly arrange windows side-by-
than a minute, and features enable users to resolve more issues side – without wasting valuable time on
themselves, while reducing time-to-resolution rearranging and re-sizing. Users can also
employees get to work for those issues that require help desk minimize or maximize viewing windows with
faster.” support.
Ashu Raina, IT Director, APRA Engineering
Services

3. “Taskbar personalization just a keystroke or a mouse gesture, making entire network. “Search and Libraries can
it simple and fast to navigate through work individually or together to give
enables our employees to multiple documents without losing track of employees immediate access to the data,
organize their important information. Users can see recently-accessed files, and information they need,” says Raina.
files by simply right-clicking an icon on their “They are tremendous productivity boosters.”
information in a way that taskbar, and they can keep important
makes sense to them, documents and files handy by pinning them Reducing Downtime
to the icon – or directly to the taskbar. Windows helps reduce downtime due to help
and that makes their desk calls – a particular pain point for APRA –
workday easier and their “Taskbar personalization enables our by moving more issues into a remote
employees to organize their important resolution model. The Windows 7 Problem
workflow faster.” information in a way that makes sense to Steps Recorder makes it easy for users to
Ashu Raina, IT Director, APRA Engineering them,” says Raina. “And that makes their accurately and quickly communicate a
Services workday easier and their workflow faster.” technical issue to a support agent by
recording the keystrokes and screen shots to
Employees spend less time searching for recreate the issue, and sending them to the
information with Instant Search, which agent.
enables them to search from the Start menu,
or from several places within Windows 7 or Having that information enables the agent to
Microsoft Office. Enhanced features deepen diagnose the issue faster, usually resolving
search capabilities, essentially making the issue over the phone rather than sending
Windows 7 one giant search engine, scouring out personnel for desk side support. “Before
a local PC, HomeGroup, network, external we deployed Windows 7, we were
drives, or the Internet. experiencing at least one desk side call per
week – costing us 3-4 hours of productive
Since the Control Panel, tasks and time per visit,” says Raina. “Now, those calls
command-level can now be searched, users are getting resolved over the phone, saving
simply type questions or phrases in the us more than 150 productive hours
Instant Search box, and retrieve any annually.”
information they need. For example, typing
“Before we deployed “power management” or “dim screen” will Moving Forward
lead users to the power management feature For APRA, Windows 7 has been a smart
Windows 7, we were that extends laptop battery life. investment, because the company is already
experiencing at least one seeing a significant return on investment in
In addition, Windows 7 Libraries make it even its productivity gains. There may be more
desk-side call per week – easier for users to find, organize, and access gains to come, however. “Increases in system
costing us 3-4 hours of information. Libraries are collections of speed and reliability, coupled with
folders that can be aggregated and shared productivity and fast problem resolution are
productive time per visit. between users. Files and applications related making our IT jobs easier and our internal
Now, those calls are getting to a specific activity or project can be customers’ work faster,” says Raina. “We’re
aggregated for an individual or group to able to do more with the same number of
resolved over the phone, provide a single, unified view. Libraries and resources, and that is outstanding for
saving us more than 150 searches can also be expanded across an profitability.”
productive hours annually.”
Ashu Raina, IT Director, APRA Engineering
Services

4. For More Information Windows 7
For more information about Microsoft Faster and more reliable: Windows 7 will help
products and services, call the Microsoft your organization use information technology
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- to gain a competitive advantage in today’s
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft new world of work. Your people will be able to
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- be more productive anyway. You will be able
2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of- to support your mobile work force with better
hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone access to shared data and collaboration
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in tools. And your IT staff will have better tools
the United States or (905) 568-9641 in and technologies to enhance corporate IT
Canada. Outside the 50 United States and security, data protection, and more efficient
Canada, please contact your local deployment and management.
Microsoft subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to: For more information about Windows 7, go to:
www.microsoft.com www.microsoft.com/windows/business
For more information about Ablaze Infosys
products and services, call +91-11-
23752296 or visit the Web site at:
www.ablazeinfosys.com
For more information about APRA
Engineering Services products and
services, call +91 9871721166 or visit the
Web site at: www.apracng.com
Software and Services
 Products
− Windows 7 Professional
© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case
study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Microsoft®, Windows® and Aero® are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the
United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are
property of their respective owners.
Document published July 2009