Note: This is an abbreviated version of a case study. The full version, along with other Office 365 customer stories, is available here.

Office 365 Customer California Strawberry Commission

Overview

The California Strawberry Commission (CSC) needs to deliver IT services to employees and several hundred member growers, shippers, and processors-despite an IT department made up of only one technical employee. To address this challenge, the CSC deployed Microsoft Office 365, offering highly scalable, enterprise-class IT capabilities for a minimal investment. IT staff are now more productive and can focus on projects that provide strategic value.

Business Needs

The California Strawberry Commission (CSC) is a resource for the California strawberry industry. The CSC works with growers, shippers, and processors of California strawberries, and other agencies to promote a stronger market by providing tools, support, and information for food safety training, marketing, and production research.

Solution

The CSC is meeting these goals by using Office 365, which unites familiar Microsoft Office applications with the power of Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online into one connected, online solution. The commission's Office 365 subscription also includes Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. "Office 365 addresses not only our immediate need to create a standardized environment that encourages collaboration but also our goals to create a unified communications system that encompasses email, instant messaging and conferencing, and document sharing and workflows," Massat says.

Benefits

By adopting Microsoft Office 365, the CSC gains the following benefits:

  • Improved productivity. By using Office 365, the CSC greatly reduces its IT maintenance time and cost, compared with on-premises solutions.
  • Greater risk management. Office 365 helps minimize risk for the CSC in several ways. First, hardware and software are maintained in Microsoft data centers with guaranteed service level agreements.
  • Advanced IT services. The CSC describes itself as a small organization with an enterprise mission, and gives Office 365 credit for helping to accomplish that mission and for giving Massat the time he needs to focus on a strategic IT vision. 

Read this case study and others at Microsoft.com/casestudies.

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