Opus chooses Office 365 to support expansion plans

Microsoft's Office 365 productivity solution has countered rivals, including Google, in its bid to deliver cloud-based services to Opus, a New Zealand based global infrastructure consultancy group.

Opus has already begun the process of rolling out Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity suite, which will eventually see all staff having secure access to email and calendars, Office applications such as Word, Outlook and Excel, instant messaging and  conferencing through Lync, and file sharing via SharePoint, from anywhere in the world. 

Opus’ Chief Information Officer Bruce Tinsley, says the deployment of Office 365 will support their growth strategy for becoming one of the top 20 consultancies in the world by 2020.

“We wanted a system that was up-to-date, flexible and agile – a system that had the scale to support our ambitious growth plans,” says Tinsley.

“We also wanted a product that offered staff easy access to our network from multiple devices and locations, and the ability to do the basics, like view and edit calendars on their smartphones.”

Other considerations taken into account when choosing the software included how well the solution integrated with Opus’ planned IT environment, as well as minimising the impact on administration for the company’s IT department. Office 365 was seen as the right choice to support that vision as well as a natural extension to the company’s suite of Microsoft Office products.

“In the end, choosing Microsoft just seemed to make sense,” says Tinsley. “We looked at some other big-name suppliers, but kept coming back to the fact that Microsoft offered an enterprise-ready solution, and is a trusted corporate brand.”

Opus has already seen the benefits of its decision, particularly during the recent acquisition of Coffey Rail in Australia.

“What impressed us was how straightforward it was to deploy. Coffey staff moved on to Office 365 over one weekend.”

Opus plans to use Office 365 to support its global operations in Australasia, the UK and North America, taking advantage of the solution to align virtual teams who will collaborate on different projects within New Zealand and across the globe. The company also hopes the technology will make it easier to work collaboratively with industry partners on consortium-based projects.

Microsoft New Zealand's Enterprise Group Director Jordy Almgren, is already looking ahead, saying the Opus partnership has considerable potential to evolve as the consulting group considers other technology rollouts, including SharePoint and Lync Enterprise Voice.

“Opus is a successful New Zealand company with ambitious growth plans. An Office 365 solution represents a natural fit given this platform will support Opus’ future growth as they approach new opportunities locally and overseas,” says Almgren.

Opus hopes to have Office 365 deployed companywide by the end of quarter one 2013.