SharePoint and the
Future of Social IT
Productivity in 2012
Public and Private Clouds
Ready to Receive your
Company
Unleashing
the Force of
Consumerism
07
09
05
Microsoft’s Enterprise
Agreement is Cloud
Ready
13
Customers and
Partners are our
Compass
16
17
Technological
Partners, the Key
to Success
On vision
executive magazine
issue 29 / september - november 2011
Microsoft virtualization
solutions
help place your company on the
leading edge of technology.
Be the solution.
Microsoft Virtualization
R
Realize value, availability, and agility with
Microsoft’s Virtualization
Solutions
from the desktop and datacenter, to the cloud.
Microsoft provides an end-to-end suite of virtualization products and
technologies - all tied together by a centralized management system.
Virtualization Products and Technologies
More information:
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/default.aspx
Try it:
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/downloads.aspx
loud computing is
undoubtedly changing the
rules of the game. A recent
survey conducted by Gartner
[i] among 2,000 IT directors
showed that “in the next 5 years, almost
half of these directors expect to be
operating most of their applications and
infrastructure using cloud technologies.”
This technology is more efficient, can
help redistribute investments and
optimize resources. However, this is
about something with a much broader
scope. Cloud computing is redefining
how consumers interact with companies
and the types of services they are asking
for, and in particular is the force that is
rapidly changing the way IT is conducted.
In this field, Microsoft has a unique offer for
the market. This means that we can provide
companies with the ability to obtain the
maximum yield on their existing investments
and make cloud computing work specifically
to suit their company and on their own terms.
Obtain the maximum yield on
your current investment
Though cloud computing is a relatively
new computing model, it should not
require that you invest in an entirely
new infrastructure to be able to take
advantage of it. At Microsoft we have
been designing our cloud services such
that you continue to obtain value from
your current investments – delivering
a platform that, from beginning to
end, helps your IT professionals and
developers and affords the best
experience of productivity for end users.
The cloud working for your
company and on your own terms
At Microsoft, we believe that services
on the cloud should be taken in the
way that makes the most sense for your
business. We won’t present you with
a proposal that says “take it or leave
it”; rather, our strategy is to offer a set
of solutions that give our customers
the power to choose. You get to have
complete control and flexibility on a
private cloud. You can benefit from
our operational excellence should you
choose a public cloud, while you focus
your IT organization on generating a
competitive advantage. Or combine
elements of the two cloud types to
obtain the best balance. Whatever you
choose, you will be getting security
and high level availability that will
assist you in minimizing your risks.
Read more about cloud computing
and other topics of interest related
to this new technology.
The cloud is changing
the way we think about IT
By Eric Feagler
Director of Corporate Accounts
Microsoft Latin America
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 3
ed
editorial
c
Summary
in
eo
innovations
executive opinion
On vision - Executive Magazine, is a quarterly magazine
by Microsoft which distributes, informs, guides and suggests
the use of products Microsoft Technology.
©2011 Microsoft Corporation - All rights reserved.
Public and Private Clouds Ready to Receive your Company
Unleashing the Force of Consumerism
SharePoint and the Future of Social IT
Productivity in 2012
Customers and Partners are our Compass
Technological Partners, the Key to Success
5
7
9
16
17
cs
case study
19
Efficient, Citizen-Oriented Governance Supported by
CRM Technologies
Executive Board
Editor in Chief
Claudia Monteiro
Online Marketing Manager
Microsoft Latin America
Executive Editor
Carolina Flórez Ibáñez
Digital Project Manager
Microsoft Latin America
Concept and Editorial Line
Armando Exposito
Director of Corporate Marketing
Microsoft Latin America
Eric Feagler
Director of Corporate Accounts
Microsoft Latin America
Juan Mina
Corporate Program Managed Accounts
Microsoft The Caribbean
Martha Sánchez
Customer Marketing Manager
Microsoft Colombia
Antonio Naranjo Modad
Corporate Account Manager
Microsoft México
Fernando Ortega
Corporate Account Manager
Microsoft Venezuela
Maria Victoria Fornaciari
Customer Marketing Manager
Microsoft Argentina y Uruguay
Fernando Abrego
Customer Marketing Manager
Microsoft Chile
Collaborators
Rodrigo Paiva • Santiago Martínez
Beatriz Naranjo Fernández
Helly Fernández • Rosie Arrieta
David González • Carolina Vargas
Ángel Santiago • Lida Guavita
Santiago Rodríguez • Juanita Gómez
Edition and Layout
Khroma Comunicaciones
Colombia
business solutions
11
13
15
Mixed IT Environment Solutions
Using Microsoft Technology
Microsoft’s Enterprise
Agreement is Cloud Ready
How would you like to control the costs of your software
inventory, optimize your resources and grow your
business? SAM is the solution
On vision
executive magazine
issue 29 / september - november 2011
bs
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 5
in
innovations
dopting cloud computing
solutions nowadays is one
of the principal priorities of
companies in Latin America
and the world. And this is not
by chance. The technology has proven itself
and organizations already taking advantage
of this computing innovation are multiplying,
for it is providing them with the flexibility
to adapt in a dynamic scenario, more agile
everyday operations, significant cost savings
and alternatives for confronting unforeseen
situations in a secure and reliable manner
to ensure the continuity of their business.
Examples? Ask the companies in Japan,
which have had to add incalculable losses
with regard to computing as a result of
the devastation of the latest earthquake
to their equally outrageous losses in
material goods, and have finally been able
to reestablish their computing system
operations. With cloud computing, operations
are reestablished practically instantly.
Another scenario? The crisis deepens in one
of the European countries and the operation
must be redirected to new markets, with other
currencies, other volumes, other rules. This
generates the need to replicate data bases,
develop new applications and increase the
processing capacity very rapidly, without
any time for setting up new computer
centers. Any similarities that might exist with
current realities, is sheer coincidence.
Of course a lot of questions come up when
having to decide whether or not to engage
the cloud: Should it be a private or a public
cloud? What services would need to be
transferred to the cloud? Below we will be
referring to the experiences of some of the
clients in the region, but before that it is
necessary to answer some of these questions.
Taking into account that there are medium-
and large-size companies that are already
more than 60% virtualized, including critical
mission applications, doing this undoubtedly
constitutes an option to seriously consider.
The essential components of a
private
cloud
are the technologies of virtualization,
the servers and data bases at the data
center level, that is,
Microsoft Windows
Server
with
Hyper-V
and
SQL Server
as central elements needed to mount a
strong, flexible, scalable and inter-operable
platform, but also the
System Center
family for an efficient administration of
the configuration and operation of virtual
machines and other network resources.
Likewise,
ForeFront
steps in to make
the environment secure and reliable,
whether in one’s own installations or in
those of the service supplier. The local
implementation of these tools or the
subscription to a Local Area Augmentation
System (LAAS) are the variants available for
choosing in accordance with the strategic
decision vis-à-vis the place the computer
area in the organization will occupy.
Public and Private Clouds Ready
to Receive your Company
By Aylton Souza
Cloud Product Manager
Microsoft Latin America
a
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 6
in
innovations
The same definition will have an impact,
in referring to the public cloud, when
choosing between hiring a platform
as service (PaaS) to set up one’s own
applications, or a software solution as
service (SaaS). Nowadays the market
offering is very extensive, depending on the
needs of any given organization, ranging
from
Windows Azure
and
SQL Azure
to
Office 356
, moving through the tools of
the
Microsoft Dynamics Online
family.
The voice of the clients
After having reviewed the overall
panorama and the solutions offered by
Microsoft at present, now let us take a
look at what companies in Latin America
are doing with these technologies.
Cerámicas Caribe is a group in Venezuela
dedicated to the manufacture of wall tiling
and ceramics. It has a monthly installed
production capacity of 900,000 sq m and
500 employees. By means of the virtualized
console with
Hyper-V
that the
System
Center
operates on, it managed to reduce
the response time by 50% for incidents
presented by the company’s users.
Hoyts Cinemas in Chile chose
Microsoft
Dynamics CRM 2011
to empower its call
center that attends more than 5 million
customers. This system facilitates the
connection and collaboration with other
areas in the company and allows them
to work more intelligently and efficiently,
processing over 1,000 calls a month.
The Mexican Federal Government’s
Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las
Artes (National Council for Culture and
the Arts) mounted the entire technological
platform for the Cervantino Festival on
Windows Azure
, thereby achieving an
initial 82% savings versus what it would
have cost to buy the infrastructure
necessary for servicing the more than
600,000 visitors. It managed to provide
service for thousands of reporters
covering the event using
Office 365
.
The Judicial Power of the Province of
Buenos Aires in Argentina decided to
virtualize their servers when faced with
the impossibility of continuing to grow
due to the lack of physical space and
the increase in energy consumption
and in refrigeration for the equipment.
Using
Hyper-V
it reduced the batch
of servers by 25%, generated greater
productivity and set the bases for
consolidating, in the near future, all its
operations in a virtualized data center.
These are only some examples of companies
that have been capitalizing on the public
and private clouds. What about you?
When are you planning to take flight?
http://www.microsoft.com/
en-us/cloud/default.aspx
More information on:
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 7
in
innovations
s consumers of information
technologies have more
and more new intelligent
devices and applications
available to them, their
enthusiasm for taking them to the
workplace, integrating them into the
rest of their work tools, giving them full
use and providing support, increases.
People are going to work these days
with much higher expectations relative
to information technologies (IT),
they are demanding better devices
and applications, more options of
connectivity and mobility, and faster,
uninterrupted service. These growing
expectations are exerting strong
pressure on IT departments to offer
attractive solutions to end users and,
at the same time, maintain a secure
and well administered environment.
With this in mind, how can we be of
assistance? Microsoft and Windows can
accompany and assist your organization
in successfully navigating this new reality
of IT consumerism. We know how to
equip organizations and how to orient
them to tread the path of consumerism
in a responsible manner. We can guide
and help them in running their business,
while they capitalize on the potentials
of consumerism at the same time.
We can assist you in unleashing
the force of consumerism.
Consumerism
What is it?
Consumerism is a growing tendency with
which business users make their final
decisions about what devices, applications
and services to use to get their work done.
What characterizes users?
■
■
BYO
(
Bring Your Own
): users
bring their own PC, intelligent
phones and devices to work.
■
■
Displays:
enthusiasm for displays
(like the iPad) and PC whiteboards.
Unleashing the Force
of Consumerism
a
By Rodrigo Paiva
Windows Marketing Manager
Latin America
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 8
in
innovations
■
■
Social networking:
the use of
social networking websites (for
example, Twitter and LinkedIn)
at work and for work.
■
■
Personal cloud:
work-related
collaboration using cloud
computing applications (for
example, web mail, storage on the
cloud and web applications).
Controllers
■
■
More options:
end users have
more access to more intelligent and
cheaper devices, social networking
sites and cloud services.
■
■
Enabling technologies:
wireless
networks, cloud services,
virtualization, powerful and
intuitive devices, etc., enable, if not
altogether feed, this tendency.
■
■
Blurring between work and
personal life:
lifestyles have evolved
to such an extent that the lines
between work and play or personal
life have been blurred. Users want
consistent technology at work, at
home, and everywhere in between.
■
■
User expectations:
in the final
analysis, the expectations of the
user have increased; he/she expects
technology at work to be as good
as what he/she has at home.
What is our point of view?
This is good! The risks of consumerism
are being compensated by the potential
benefits in terms of productivity
and passion on the part of the user,
innovation, competitive advantages
and even cost savings. We think there
is great power in saying YES in a
responsible manner, and that there
is a great opportunity available to
the IT leaders who are driving their
businesses through this transition.
Why are we the best company
to assist customers?
From the administration of devices
and applications to the solutions
of social networking, two things
differentiate us from our competitors:
Widespread knowledge and solutions for
both consumers’ and companies’ space.
Extensive and prolonged experience
as consultants and partners of
IT companies and leaders.
Walk towards a YES
1.
Evaluate and understand
what users do and why.
2.
Consider the basic aspects,
including data security, device and
application administration.
3.
Use enabling technologies
such as desktop virtualization
and cloud computing.
4.
Update the policies in the organization,
not only the IT department but also
Legal, Human Resources, among others.
5.
Implement a pilot program and
adopt consumerism scenarios and
use them to drive business results.
http://windows.microsoft.com/
en-US/windows7/products/home
More information on:
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 9
in
innovations
ocial networking and
social IT have already
changed the way in which
we create and maintain
our relationships with others and
our environment. Nowadays, having
social networks like Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter, among others,
allows us to be informed practically
in real time of what is occurring in
the world. As people, we are used
to living with these technologies
now and find it hard to conceive of
a world without virtual identities.
Likewise, the cloud computing boom,
with its massive data centers, is
delivering almost infinite resources,
providing us with the storage capacity
and processing power it contains and
will contain, very soon, practically
the sum total of human knowledge.
Additionally, the cloud will be a center
SharePoint and the Future of Social IT
Productivity in 2012
for all the data and information that
will allow us to capture, store, index,
analyze and record a large part of
our day-to-day existence, to the
extent that we wish to share all this.
It will also offer us a platform for
orchestrating the flow of information
and technology in our lives so that
we always have instant access to
By Beatriz Naranjo Fernández
Marketing Business Productivity
Manager for Latin America
Today’s social IT tendencies make it necessary for companies to
provide users with the best productivity tools, similar to those
that are used in their everyday lives. The use of
Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server
and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Online
allow
for the generation of social environments with business purposes,
permitting the company and its users to be more productive.
s
on vision
issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 10
in
innovations
the tools and data we need, and this
will mean that, both in our private lives
and business environments, we will
be capable of making decisions with
more information in less time, and,
therefore, we will be more productive.
This is why companies have to offer
platforms that satisfy the new methods of
communicating that we are all immersed in,
platforms that allow productivity to soar and
that support business processes and policies.
Microsoft SharePoint
is the platform
that allows for these interactions.
Whether as an on-site server or
on the cloud,
Microsoft SharePoint
helps businesses of all sizes to:
Take social computing to the company
by easily and quickly having websites
for team work, wikis (creation, exchange
and review of information, simply
and automatically), blogs, discussion
forums, portals, personal websites and,
therefore, to handle the knowledge
base of the users in the company.
Work in a collaborative manner efficiently by
allowing for the sharing of documents among
the team members and following up on
projects, as well as searching for information
and people based on related skills and/or data.
Maintain the documentation up to date, by
managing the team’s important documents
and protecting the critical information
of the business by permitting access to
shared documents and to information.
Microsoft SharePoint
also works with the
family of
Microsoft Office
applications,
making the collaborative creation
and maintenance of documents easy.
Users can have access to them offline
or via mobile devices as long as they
have the authorization to do so.
Additionally,
Microsoft SharePoint
makes it possible to communicate
in real time via a simple click,
thanks to
Microsoft Lync
.
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/
en-us/Pages/default.aspx
Further information
to be found at:
Companies have
to offer platforms
that satisfy the
new methods of
communicating that
we are all immersed
in,
platforms that allow
productivity to soar and that
support business processes
and policies.
on vision issue 29
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pag. 11
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business solutions
icrosoft as a company has for
many years participated in
the process of the creation
of industry standards,
to allow the different technologies
to communicate harmoniously with
Microsoft products and services.
Mixed IT environments allow our
customers to have the best of all worlds.
They can have the advantages and
support provided by Microsoft’s solutions
and services for improving their work,
without losing the tools developed
in other operating systems that are
essential to their businesses. More than
350,000 open code applications run
on the Microsoft platform nowadays,
and this is more than 82% of the open
code software available today.
The cost of technology is always one
of the most relevant issues, as in many
cases there used to be the need to have
resources in mixed IT environments
dedicated to maintaining servers with
different operating systems, given
that many of the applications ran on
different platforms. As an example
of the contributions made, in 2009
Microsoft donated 20,000 code lines
to Linux’s Kernel to turn it into a
first class host on Windows Hyper-V.
Thanks to this contribution, Linux can
be virtualized on Windows Server
2008 R2 and be administered in a
centralized manner through Microsoft
System Center, thereby reducing the
cost of resources for maintenance and
monitoring of servers. This also allows
customers to use a unified, robust
platform like Windows Server to help
manage and administer the systems.
Following are the comments made
by some of our customers:
“Microsoft’s strategy on the cloud is
something we have been contemplating
for the near future, as it provides
us with the possibility of executing
applications not only built on their
.NET framework, but also on PHP,
Ruby or Java, which contributes to
simplifying the administration of
mixed environments.”
Juan Alcaraz,
Responsible for IT, The Consolidada
Mixed IT Environment Solutions
Using Microsoft Technology
Microsoft is changing as a company and becoming more open – in the way we build
our products, collaborate with our customers and work with others in the industry.
By Angel Santiago Iglesias, Director
of the Commercial Strategy
Group, Microsoft Latin America
Microsoft and Technological Openness
m
on vision
issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 12
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business solutions
“The development of a mixed system
with Microsoft solutions together with
other types of solutions has allowed us to
optimize all the school’s processes, such
as the generation of attendance lists,
schedules, the students’ statements of
accounts, academic follow-up, among other
applications that make up the system.”
Rene
Clemente Suarez, Assistant Director for
IT, Universidad Politécnica de Morelos
“The integration of the two technologies was
so transparent that it gave us the pointer
that the issue of inter-operability is very
important to Microsoft.”
Katia Navarrete,
Head of the IT Unit, FONAVIPO
At Microsoft we know that free software
and the open code have contributed
and continue to contribute greatly to this
reality, and that is why we wish to connect
to other all the people, businesses, groups
and governments in the region that are
working on issues like free software, open
codes and standards and inter-operability,
gain awareness of their concerns, place
our platform and human talent at their
disposal, and, above all, create spaces for
entertainment and problem-solving in an
optimum, respectful and creative manner. Our
goal is to be able to provide our customers
with solutions and products that allow them
to work more quickly and efficiently in their
businesses. At Microsoft we are changing
as a company and are now more open.
To learn more about inter-operability and mixed environments, check out our Openness portal
for more detailed information:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/default.aspx
To learn more about the technical aspects of the technologies Microsoft inter-operates with,
check out our open code community at Openness@Microsoft for more detailed information:
The purpose of this community is to maintain healthy and continuous communications
among the open code community, where one can speak openly and honestly about the
different topics to do with inter-operability, such as UNIX, Linux, Windows, among other
open code packages.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/default.aspx
More information on:
Microsoft builds inter-
operability into its
products to help customers
administer and reduce
costs in today’s mixed
IT environments and
collaborates with
customers,
among
them governments, to
resolve challenges of
inter-operability between
Microsoft and other
technologies.
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 13
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business solutions
e continue to hear that for many
companies, this is the year they’ve
resolved to move some or all of
their applications to the cloud.
As the Marketing Manager of
Microsoft’s Latin America Volume Licensing
Programs, my ‘what the cloud means to me”
story looks slightly different from my Microsoft
engineering or marketing colleagues.
Yes, the cloud is a place to host software; it’s an
exciting new business model for customers,
partners and Microsoft; and it comes with
an exciting delivery model that exposes new
engineering and deployment possibilities. But
from where I sit, the cloud has also opened up an
entirely different conversation with customers who
are evaluating, not simply if they move, but, when,
how, what and who they move to the cloud.
These discussions have continued to reinforce
the notion that organizations are more
thoughtful than ever in business planning
for technology purchases. A consistent
theme across conversations regarding cloud
computing is that each organization is unique
with different motivations and timeframes
for moving to the cloud. Customers tell me
they’re ready to move, but want to transition
to cloud services at their own pace; they want
the flexibility to match cloud services to meet
the needs of different types of users; as well
as the opportunity to adjust volume and mix
of online services to meet fluctuations in the
workforce; and lastly they want to easily vary
the number of online service users above their
Enterprise Agreement (EA) commitment.
Although our customers are familiar with
our software Enterprise Agreement, and
appreciate the way it allows them to make
technology commitments over time, it was
time to evolve licensing options to address
these changes in the IT landscape.
So with customer and partner feedback at
the forefront of our minds, we have made a
substantive evolution of the familiar EA. The
new capabilities allow us to accommodate
changing business models while still providing a
single agreement imbued with flexible terms.
When I consider the biggest benefits of the
updated EA, I would have to say that these lie
in the area of flexibility and are demonstrated
through the ability to match workloads to different
types of users, the opportunity to adjust volume
and mix of online services to meet fluctuations
in workforce, and the flexibility to move users
between on-premises and online services as
business requirements and expectations change.
Microsoft Office 365, announced in October
and available now, is a great example of
the EA’s new flexibility to combine online
services with on-premises software.
Customers can still sign a single company-
wide EA that now also allows them to
license any mix of Office, SharePoint,
Exchange and Lync on premises and
for Office 365 cloud services and be
flexible with their on-premises and online
investments. The updated Enterprise
Agreement also allows customers to move
licenses to the cloud and back without
financial penalty and provides an option to
easily add incremental Office 365 users.
Microsoft’s Enterprise
Agreement is Cloud Ready
By Rosie Arrieta
Licensing Marketing Manager
Microsoft Latin America
w
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 14
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business solutions
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/
This is also the case for the new desktop
management solution introduced in March
called
Windows Intune.
Windows Intune is
an all-in-one solution that brings together
Microsoft cloud services for PC management
and malware protection with a Windows
7 Enterprise upgrade subscription. In this
way, with Windows Intune through the
EA, customers gain the most cost effective
and flexible licensing solution to manage
and protect their PCs right away.
While I have used Office 365 and Windows
Intune as examples here, we will be expanding
our portfolio of online services offerings to
include Windows Azure and others over
time. Looking to the future we want to help
customers and partners have confidence that
Microsoft licensing empowers them to be
prepared for changing business priorities.
Furthermore, one of the most compelling
aspects of the EA has been the support benefits
provided to help customers plan, deploy and
use Microsoft technologies through the
Software
Assurance
(SA) program. Since 2001 Software
Assurance has expanded greatly to help
customers boost organizational productivity,
streamline deployments and get the most from
their Microsoft purchases. With the customers’
IT landscape changing, SA has evolved to
better support customers’ use of Microsoft
technologies whether deployed on-premises,
in the cloud, or in hybrid environments.
As customers consider moving to the cloud,
SA delivers even more value by helping them
plan for their migrations and manage their on-
premises and hybrid environments through:
■
■
License Mobility through Software
Assurance:
An exclusive benefit for SA
customers, License Mobility through
Software Assurance is the tactical vehicle
which lets customers deploy certain server
application licenses on-premises or in the
cloud in a shared hardware environment
with the ability to assign existing licenses
to an authorized Service Provider. This
gives customers a deployment choice
between on-premises and any authorized
Service Provider’s shared datacenter
to help lower cloud infrastructure
costs by letting the Service Provider
use SA customers’ existing licenses.
There are other notable features of SA which
deliver even more value by helping customers
plan for their migrations and manage their on-
premises and hybrid environments through:
■
■
Planning Services
enhanced with
Office 365 migration guidance
■
■
New Planning Services from Server
and Tools Business for on-premises,
cloud-based, or hybrid deployments
■
■
Systems Center Advisor cloud service
for infrastructure management
■
■
Windows Thin PC
for accessing
applications residing in a
public/private cloud
The bottom line?
Customers can mix and match online services
alongside their on-premises applications and,
end users get to enjoy the latest technology
that is always up to date. IT teams gain
peace of mind through the much expected
security, reliability, and control provided by
cloud services, while also benefiting from
not needing to deploy or maintain software
and hardware on-premises in the areas
where they have moved to the cloud.
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 15
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business solutions
oftware Asset Management
(SAM) is a vital set of
continuous business
processes that provides
a system for administering and
effectively protecting software assets.
The benefits of implementing a SAM
program include financial control,
mitigation of risks, security and licensing
compliance. A well implemented
SAM plan optimizes investments in TI
and offers an integral focus for the
administration of software throughout
its life cycle. The correct administration
of software assets can help identify
the software in an organization and
eliminate any redundancies there might
be vis-à-vis the overlapping of licenses.
A solid SAM strategy involves a
series of actionable steps that can
increase the operating capacities of
your IT personnel. These increased
capacities become a strategic asset
supporting the business results
for the entire organization.
This is how SAM can help your organization:
■
■
Save money by using what you
already have. Eliminate excessive
expenses by determining your
real software needs, and feel
comfortable about viruses
and other threats by ensuring
your IT infrastructure.
■
■
Implement infrastructure
optimization, drive more automation
and empower your personnel to
increase their productivity.
■
■
Make IT a strategic asset for your
organization, one that will help
your business grow by providing a
solid organizational foundation.
■
■
Analyze new options in the use of
software through options of low demand,
such as those on the cloud (the Internet).
This better practice will give you control over
your systems and help you optimize your IT
assets and resources. Your entire organization
will benefit from SAM with increased
productivity, visibility and profitability.
How would you like to control the costs of your
software inventory, optimize your resources
and grow your business? SAM is the solution.
By David Gonzalez Nares
Director of Licensing Policy
Microsoft Latin America
s
Contact a SAM business partner
now: http://www.microsoft.
com/sam/en/us/default.aspx
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 16
eo
executive opinion
or Microsoft, the satisfaction
of its customers and partners
is the starting place. Actively
listening to their opinions
is very important to us.
Our mission is to provide software and
services that allow regular users and
businesses around the world to achieve
their maximum potential. Our success
depends on continuous improvements in
the overall satisfaction they feel towards
our products, programs and services.
Our strategy with regard to the experience
of our customers and partners includes a
set of systems for obtaining information
and tools for best approaching their
needs and ideas. These include in-depth
interviews, online forums, debates on
social networks, the “Contáctenos”
(Contact Us) link in our product websites,
automatic feedback tools incorporated
into our software products and services
that promote a relationship of cooperation.
We are committed to guaranteeing the
privacy of our customers in those systems.
Besides allowing us to communicate
more effectively with our customers and
partners, the information systems provide
important data that help us focus our
business groups on the creation of better
products and services. The interactions
that are produced through these systems
allow us to better understand the needs
of our users, respond with the improved
quality of our products, establish stronger
relationships and innovate in our business.
Customers and Partners are our Compass
Ensuring a high level of satisfaction on the part of our
users is one of the key pillars of our organization.
By Angel Santiago Iglesias, Director
of the Commercial Strategy Group,
Microsoft Latin America
Your opinion is our starting place and as part of the continuous effort to improve your
experience with Microsoft, we will be conducting the World Customer and Business
Partner Satisfaction Survey from September 26 to October 22, 2011.
It is fundamental that our customers and partners answer the survey, as this is our way
of getting to know your needs, suggestions and what improvements to implement so
that your experience of our products, services, resources and people is continuously
improved on.
Learn more about our focus at:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/
cpe/en/us/default.aspx
Join our global satisfaction survey
f
pag. 17
eo
executive opinion
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
or many organizations, even
for those that have their own
internal IT department, the key
to success in their IT projects
is their technological partner,
in other words, the specialized company
that steps in from the outside to carry out a
specific implementation or development.
Microsoft has always been aware of this,
which is why it has displayed a complete
strategy for its ecosystem of business
partners that, guided by the end user’s
needs, attends each of the characteristics
that make up a good supplier: technical
and commercial training, consulting
and assistance for putting into
operation the best industry practices.
In order for every company to have the
technological partner that best responds
to its needs,
Microsoft Partner Network
(Microsoft’s business partner network)
has identified different categories:
Certified Partners
,
Gold Certified
Partners
and Certified Partners in Entertainment
Solutions. Likewise, it has companies
specialized in the pyme segment (small
and medium-sized businesses).
From another perspective, the
Microsoft
Partner Network
programs point to
securing specific knowledge-bases among
their participants, which is why 28 different
competencies have been established: from
the desktop to data centers, and from on-
premise solutions (within the customer’s
own computer center) to the cloud, moving
through topics such as licensing, virtualizing,
the applications platform, the development
and/or implementation of ERP and CRM,
business intelligence or ALM (Application
Life Management) practices, among others.
“Supporting our partners is very important to
us, not only because it is exclusively through
them that our products reach business clients,
but also because the work we do together
is born of the need to deliver the best
technological solutions to the marketplace”,
says Martha Lucía Álvarez, Business Partner
Program Director for Microsoft Latin America.
When a technological company enrolls
in the Microsoft business partner
program, it receives many benefits.
In the first place, original software
licenses so as to use them internally
in the company and become familiar
with all the tools that will be used when
working on their customers’ projects.
The next benefit is training. Knowledge
is the essence of good service, whether it
be in consulting, development, migration,
implementation or optimization of
Technological Partners, the Key to Success
Learn about the value offered by the members of the Microsoft
Partner Network. Finding the supplier with the required experience
becomes the differentiating factor that contributes to how successful
a project can be. You’ll find the partner you need at Pinpoint.
By Martha Lucía Álvarez
Business Partner Program Director
Microsoft Latin America
f
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 18
eo
executive opinion
infrastructure. Microsoft Business Partners
have recourse to a broad range of
modalities for training their professionals:
in-person courses, e-learning, a quality
library, e-books and virtual labs. Microsoft
Certifications, well known in the
marketplace, represent the highest level
of training or formation; there are over 4.5
million professionals certified in Microsoft
technologies throughout the world.
Another valuable element, both for the
members of the network and for the
companies that hire their services or buy
their products, is the
Microsoft Pinpoint
platform that links the offer to the demand.
Technological companies can publish their
services and solutions there, easily and quickly,
while companies interested in contacting
them can verify the evaluation they have
been given and the skills they are certified in.
Besides collaborating with their business
partners during the preparatory stages
to provide better products and services,
Microsoft works together with its partners
through experts who assist with the
technical and commercial pre-sales stage,
and even beyond, accompanying the
projects that are being developed with the
customers. Thus, any challenge that may
arise will be dealt with via this backing and,
therefore, resolved in the best manner.
An additional advantage to working with
members of the
Microsoft Partner Network
community is that they are part of a
network. Often very specific needs arise
or projects become more complex as time
goes on, and this is when a partner who
knows the particular characteristics of that
customer can integrate other technological
companies to provide the required expertise
and experience. Microsoft stimulates
collaboration amongst its partners so
that together they complement their
certified skills and deliver better services.
New
for partners is equivalent
to
valuable
for clients
The entire Microsoft Business Partner
program is continuously being adapted
to the way companies’ needs and market
tendencies are evolving. In this way,
specific new skills exist today to confront
cloud computing challenges that are
added to others such as virtualization
– a technology recently adopted
everywhere in the world – and business
intelligence solutions, that are increasingly
available to organizations of all sizes.
The specializations referred to as
cloud
computing
have to do with the Microsoft
solutions on the cloud such as
Dynamics
CRM Online
,
Office 365
,
Windows Intune
and
Windows Azure
. Logically, the
universe of skills and competencies is
much broader, and it is organized around
six categories that sum up the principal
needs of organizations with regard to IT:
■
■
Applications platform
■
■
Productivity
■
■
Infrastructure
■
■
CRM and ERP
■
■
Specific solutions for the middle market
■
■
Others (licensing, hosting, training,
software asset administration, mobile
solutions, PC assemblers, etc.)
http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-XW/default.
aspx and find your next technological
partner who comes with the
Microsoft backing.
Check out
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 19
cs
case study
he National Government of
Panama set up a Citizen Service
Center based on the
Microsoft
Citizen Service Platform
(CSP),
which is enabled by
Microsoft
Dynamics CRM
technologies and
Rock Solid Technologies’ Respond
software. This
is a system of contact with various channels for
receiving complaints, accusations, ideas and
suggestions, made up of a free call line from
everywhere in the country (311), a website and
an e-mail address, all integrated into one.
This initiative was implemented in a mere 60 days,
and within 6 months half of the government entities
that concentrate the largest part of citizen concerns
was operating with the new platform. Calls that
used to take minutes to tend to, often providing
the wrong answers, are now attended within
seconds, and it is now possible to have a precise and
reliable record of all citizen complaints. Likewise,
extremely efficient follow-up and problem-solving
mechanisms are set into place, which enhances
the satisfaction of taxpayers and substantially
improves the quality of State governance. More
than 12,000 requests for service were successfully
attended within the 6-month trial period.
Situation
Panama, a country located in Central
America, has 3.5 million inhabitants. The
current State administration identified that
its citizens did not have the proper channels
through which to direct their complaints,
accusations or suggestions. Many people
had no idea of where to call because the
information they were given was confusing.
In fact, Panamanians did not know which
entity was responsible for solving their
problems, which often translated into
wasted time or feelings of dissatisfaction.
The services of attention to citizens within each
of the organisms were lacking in technology
and adequate processes for efficiently handling
the incidents that were reported to them.
This not only affected the quality of the
citizens’ lives but also implied a significant
cost for the State and encouraged undesirable
practices such as searching for “contacts”
to help solve problems. On the other hand,
the media was now being used as a means
to present complaints, with protests being
carried out on the streets which demanded
the presence of the ministers and the press
together wherever the incident had occurred,
so as to force a commitment for a solution.
“Every organism had some resources assigned for
attention to citizens. This was highly inefficient, as
the personnel was multiplied, the service was not
good, and there were no records or measurements
of any type”, says Rodolfo Caballero Rivera,
National Director of Attention to Citizens.
Given this panorama, a project was devised for the
purpose of “de-bureaucratizing” governmental
attention to citizens. The President of the
country, Ricardo Martinelli, decided to create
a Citizen Service Center for the first time in
history. A project was drawn up to create a single
citizen service center that would service all the
organisms while allowing the State to save on
installations for attention to citizens, personnel,
technological infrastructure and communications.
Efficient, Citizen-Oriented Governance
Supported by CRM Technologies
t
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 20
cs
case study
Region
: Panama
Industry
: Government
Customer Profile
: The National Citizen
Service Center is the organism created by the
Government of Panama to respond to all citizen
enquiries and concerns. The National Authority
for Government Innovation is the party in
charge of providing technological solutions
for modern and efficient State governance.
Initial Situation
The new administration needed a platform
that would allow a national citizen service
center to operate in an efficient manner,
linking up with different State organisms.
Solution
The
Respond
system from
Rock Solid Technologies
was implemented, an application developed on
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
for governments.
Benefits
■
■
The time taken to attend each call
dropped from minutes to seconds.
■
■
Over 80% of the cases are
closed in the short term.
■
■
Access is enabled 7 x 24, 365 days,
from anywhere in the country free of
charge to any government entity.
different channels: telephone, e-mail and a
website. All the complaints, accusations, ideas
and suggestions of the people of Panama are
received here from all over the country, free of
charge, whether via a fixed or a mobile phone,
or through the Internet”, adds Caballero Rivera.
Different alternative technologies were
evaluated, including the Motorola solutions,
Tívoli’s CRM and Oracle’s
Siebel
. “These options
all had different problems: implementing
them would take a lot of time, or they
were all in English, or there were no local
consultants available or they were too
costly. In searching for the ideal solution,
we discovered the
Respond
system from the
Puerto Rican company
Rock Solid Technologies
,
which is based on
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
and other Microsoft technologies, which
enable the
Microsoft Citizen Service
Platform,
or CSP. It was preconfigured for a Latin
American government, which lead us to
believe it would be faster to personalize for
the Government of Panama, and this was
in fact the case: we managed to implement
it within 60 days”, states the official.
Through a consortium made up of Telecarrier–
Cable Onda (supplying the data center),
Medata (operator of the call center),
Rock
Solid Technologies
and Microsoft, the three-
part system was put into place to provide
the technological infrastructure for the daily
operations of the National Citizen Service Center.
First we ran a pilot program with 20 entities
that were added one at a time. Now that
the new platform has been running for six
months, 36 State institutions are operating
the 311, which is equivalent to 50% of all the
State entities representing the Legislative,
Executive and Judicial government branches,
public companies and sponsors; another 36
entities will be added before the end of 2011.
Solution
“The National Citizen Service Center was created
as per Presidential decree. With the assistance
of the National Authority for Government
Innovation, the infrastructure for the 311 service
was set up to attend the public through the
on vision issue 29
september - november 2011
pag. 21
cs
case study
“One important factor that contributed to
our choosing the
Rock Solid Technologies
and
Microsoft solution was the ease with which we
were able to adapt it to our specific needs and
how easy it then was for the users”, comments
Vielka Mora, 311 Director of Operations
for the National Citizen Service Center.
All the system’s users, whether operators
of the Service Center or the connections
said have with each of the organisms, have
access to the
Respond
application via a
website. This “
front end
” (part of the software
that interfaces with the user) operates on
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
, which in turn
works on an infrastructure made up of
Windows Server 2008
and
SQL Server 2008
.
Rock Solid Technologies
, a Microsoft
Gold
Partner
, developed
Respond
in
.NET
on
Microsoft Dynamics
and has accumulated a
lot of experience in the last few years with
local and national government projects, in
Puerto Rico, its country of origin, and in
other countries in the region. “In the case
of Panama’s 311, the greatest challenge was
the speed with which the authorities wanted
to have the National Citizen Service Center
in operation. Thanks to the willingness of
all involved and the support of the project,
but also thanks to the characteristics of the
technology we used, we managed to do
in 60 days’ time what normally, and using
other tools, would have taken us 6 months,
easily”, commented Engineer Ángel L. Pérez,
Vice-President of
Rock Solid Technologies
.
In order to implement the system, it was
necessary to solve the issue of inter-operability
with the
Asterisk
system, an open code
development used by Medata for operating
call centers, and with the National Citizen
Service Center’s web portal, inherited in PHP,
which can also receive complaints online.
Benefits
The standards of the call center at
present, according to the first 6 months’
statistics, show that of the 400 thousand
calls, 90% were attended in less than 15
seconds; the citizens’ concerns are logged
in the system in less than 4 minutes.
Currently, the National Citizen Service Center is
in service 7 x 24 and answers over 65,000 calls
a month, 96% of which are complaints (with
a rate of closing calls in the short term higher
than 80%), 2.5% are accusations and the rest
are suggestions or requests for information.
Over 25,000 requests for service have already
been received, and 12,000 have been resolved
in as little as 6 months. “We are solving 600
complaints a week, on average”, reports the 311.
Likewise, thanks to the features of
Respond
and
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
, each of the organisms
is given a detailed report of the following on a
monthly basis: open cases, closed cases, rejected
cases, type of communication used, channel
chosen by each person, rates of effectiveness
of the process and of resolution within the
timeframes stipulated in each service agreement
with taxpayers, a ranking of the topics that most
concern people, an opening per province, district
and country subdivision, and even details of the
time each call is made so as to pinpoint what time
of day more operations personnel is required. The
rate of calls being dropped by users has dropped
significantly since the implementation of 311.
“Our mission is to modernize public governance,
making the access of the Panamanians to
their government entities more speedy,
easy and modern. With the National
Citizen Service Center and the
Rock Solid
Technologies
and Microsoft technologies,
we are achieving this now”, concludes the
administrator of the AIG, Eduardo E. Jaen.
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