Microsoft Office 365Customer Solution Case Study

Real Estate Firm Saves $215,000 with Hosted Solution Upgrade

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Real estate

Customer ProfileIntero Real Estate Services was founded in Cupertino, California, in 2002. The innovative, fast-growing company supports over 2,000 agents at 14 corporate offices and over 40 franchise locations.

Business SituationIntero needed a cost-effective, scalable way to provide messaging for agents who rely on email to communicate with other agents and clients, and to help close time-sensitive deals.

SolutionIntero upgraded its hosted messaging service to Microsoft Office 365, which provides cloud-based versions of next-generation communications and collaboration services.

Benefits Eases administration Reduces costs Provides flexibility for agents Supports rapid company growth Increases confidence in solutions

“We are very pleased with having Microsoft as a partner. We have received excellent support and have had a great experience with Office 365.”

Gino Blefari, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intero Real Estate Services

Intero Real Estate Services, Inc. is a fast-growing premier real estate firm with over 2,000 agents working at 14 corporate offices and over 40 franchise offices in the western United States and international locations. Agents rely on messaging to communicate with clients and help close time-sensitive sales. Intero considered migrating to Google Apps to provide messaging, but the firm realized that Microsoft offered a hosted solution that was more suited to its needs. Instead, Intero opted to migrate to a hosted Microsoft messaging solution. Recently, the firm upgraded to Microsoft Office 365 to take advantage of the latest capabilities available through these cloud-based services. Since moving to a hosted solution, Intero has benefited from eased IT administration, cost savings of $215,000, and a scalable solution that enables its continued growth.

SituationFounded in 2002, Intero Real Estate Services, Inc. has quickly become one of the premier real estate brands in the United States. The firm operates 15 corporate locations and over 40 franchises across the United States and in territories in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa through its Intero International operations.

Located in the middle of Silicon Valley, Intero looks for innovative ways to provide technological support for its 2,000 agents. The firm developed a concept called Intero Andare, a real estate office reinvented as an environment built for tomorrow and today, not yesterday. These small, technology-rich and eco-friendly office spaces are designed to help agents increase their mobility and decrease their dependence on traditional office space. As agents become increasingly mobile, they rely heavily on technologies such as messaging to stay in touch with each other and to communicate with clients and banks. “Messaging is very important to our agents,” says Eric Rees, Director of IT for Intero. “The business of selling houses is time-sensitive, so having a reliable messaging solution is a real necessity.”

In 2009, Intero was starting to outgrow its Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 messaging solution. In addition, as a result of economic challenges in the real estate industry, the IT team at Intero had reduced its workforce, but it was still required to support the end-user experience for the firm’s agents. Always forward-thinking, the IT team decided to look at a hosted solution that would help it to reduce costs and ease administration for its messaging solution. The firm decided to do a 30-day trial of Google Apps for a small group of

agents, but it quickly found the solution lacked the familiarity of the Exchange environment. Agents were accustomed to using the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client, and integrating the two platforms was not as easy as expected. Intero also worried about the lack of support, both for administrators and for users. “We are right down the street from Google, but they never came to our offices during the pilot,” says Eric Rees, Director of IT at Intero. Intero still believed a hosted solution was the right answer for providing a messaging solution for agents. The firm met with a group of Microsoft representatives to learn about the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which included a cloud-based messaging solution, Microsoft Exchange Online. It attended a Strategy Briefing at the Microsoft Technology Center in Mountain View, California, to see how the solution would work with real-world scenarios. Microsoft also illustrated options for migrating the on-premises solution considering the firm’s mix of personal computing environments. “Microsoft sent a vice president out to talk with us, and at the Microsoft Technology Center they made sure we understood everything and were comfortable with our options,” says Rees. By July 2010, Intero had completed its migration to Microsoft Exchange Online.

SolutionTo take advantage of the latest messaging technologies available through the cloud, Intero upgraded to Microsoft Office 365, which provides cloud-based versions of next-generation communications and collaboration services, including Exchange Online. To complete its transition to Office

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365, Intero worked with Microsoft Partner Network member Slalom Consulting, which had also helped the firm with its initial migration to the cloud. “We completed the migration to Exchange Online in Office 365 in one weekend,” says Rees. “It went very smoothly.”

As a part of its transition to Exchange Online, which is based on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 technology, Intero also deployed a Client Access Server on-premises. By implementing a Client Access Server, the firm can do things such as quickly customize distribution lists and aliases at agents’ requests. “With the Client Access Server, we have more local control over things such as distribution lists,” says Rees. “We can make any changes through the Exchange Management Console, and the changes are synced to Office 365.”

Through the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client or Outlook Web App, everyone has access to email features such as calendars, text formatting, nested folders, and full search capabilities. Agents and staff who use Apple computers use Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011, which provides the same look and feel and robust capabilities as Microsoft Outlook 2010.

With the availability of Outlook Web App through a browser on virtually any device with a network connection, agents can be more mobile. Using Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, they are also starting to depend on their phones more to send and receive email. “One of the decisions we made was to stop support for the RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Service, which meant less administration for us,” says Rees. Now

agents primarily use a mix of iPhone and Android smartphones to access their email.

Intero is also taking advantage of Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, which is automatically included with Office 365 and is an Internet-based service that helps protect inbound and outbound email from spam, viruses, phishing scams, and email policy violations. “Using Forefront Online Protection, we can more easily do email tracing, which can be important for agents who are exchanging documents with banks and clients,” says Rees.

Going forward, Intero plans to investigate Microsoft SharePoint Online in Office 365 to provide a centralized document repository. “We think that SharePoint Online could be a good fit for us to have a single place where we keep important documents that agents need to access on a regular basis,” says Rees. “Agents could also more easily share documents and information without having to rely on sending attachments back and forth.”

BenefitsBy upgrading to Exchange Online in Office 365, Intero Real Estate can ensure that agents have access to the latest messaging technology available without the risk of additional administration or costs to the firm. A flexible, cloud-based solution also makes it easier for the growing business to add new franchises, and will ensure that Intero can continue to attract talent that is interested in working for a company that provides the best technological tools to help them do their jobs. “We are very pleased with having Microsoft as a partner,” says Gino Blefari, President and CEO of Intero Real Estate Services. “We have

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received excellent support and have had a great experience with Office 365.”

Eases AdministrationBy implementing a cloud-based email solution with Exchange Online, Intero reduced administration tasks such as performing server maintenance and applying upgrades and patches. Intero automatically receives upgrades to Exchange Online as a part of its hosted service. The daily tasks have drastically decreased for the three-person IT team, and even those tasks that remain in their control have been simplified. “Tasks that used to require us to write scripts and took several steps to perform, we can now do in one step through the Exchange Management Console,” says Rees. “Two people can handle 90 percent of the administration for Exchange Online—and that’s not even full-time.”

Because the IT team spends less time managing its messaging solution, it has more time to focus on other projects. “Because we implemented a Microsoft hosted solution, we found ourselves with time to develop more forward-thinking projects that can help the agents be more effective,” says Rees.

Reduces Costs In addition to avoiding the cost of an expensive upgrade for its original on-premises messaging solution, Intero experienced an initial license savings of US$120,000 when it decided to transition to Exchange Online. It also experienced cost savings of $95,000 over the last two years by avoiding new hardware purchases and by eliminating third-party software. In addition, the firm reduced power and

cooling costs in the data center by eliminating the servers that run its on-premises solution.

With the upgrade to Office 365, the firm expects to continue to see ongoing reductions in costs. “Our original on-premises solution was not scaled for growth,” says Rees. “With Office 365, we can scale more effectively, and we do not have to worry about adding storage, servers, or people to support the solution. With the online subscription model, I know exactly how much it will cost to add new users, and I can keep my budget balanced.”

Provides Flexibility for AgentsOffice 365 supports the model for Intero Andare by making it easier for agents to work from anywhere on virtually any device. When agents are away from their computers, they can access their email through Outlook Web App or from their mobile devices by using Exchange Active Sync. In addition, agents can more easily control their own environments. “With Exchange Online in Office 365, users and administrators both have more control over the environment,” says Rees. “Agents now have the ability to forward their email to other accounts, so they can control their branding. That’s very empowering.”

Supports Rapid Company GrowthEven with the downturns in the economy and the real estate market, Intero has continued to grow. The firm continues to expand into international markets and to look for additional growth areas in the United States. “When we are trying to join forces with another agency, we have a real advantage in having Microsoft as a partner,” says Blefari.

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"Because we implemented a Microsoft hosted solution, we found ourselves with time to develop more forward-thinking projects that can help the agents be more effective."

Eric Rees, Director of IT, Intero

"When we are trying to join forces with another agency, we have a real advantage in having Microsoft as a partner."

Gino Blefari, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intero

From an administrative standpoint, new franchises are easier to integrate. “A new franchise can opt to use its own domain and we can manage it for them using Exchange Online on the back end,” says Rees. “We don’t experience any of those administrative roadblocks, and we don’t need to hire more IT staff as we take on new franchises.”

Increases Confidence in SolutionsBy using cloud-based services to ensure that agents have access to the latest technology, Intero believes it increases agents’ confidence. “When agents see that we are providing the best possible technology for them, it gives them a great vote of confidence in Intero, so they feel better about being a part of the company,” says Blefari.

“It also helps us to attract the best talent,” he continues. “The new generation of agents expects the latest, most efficient solutions available, and with Office 365, we can offer them that.”

Microsoft Office 365Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products—Microsoft SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online—with the latest version of our Office desktop suite and companion web applications for businesses of all sizes.

Office 365 helps save time and money, and it frees up valued resources. Simple to use and easy to administer, it is financially backed by a service level agreement that guarantees 99 percent reliability. Office 365 features robust security, IT-level phone support, geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, and the business-class privacy controls and standards that you expect from a world-class service provider.

For more information about Microsoft Office 365, go to:www.office365.com

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Slalom Consulting products and services, call (206) 438-5700 or visit the website at: www.slalom.com

For more information about Intero Real Estate services, call (866) 334-7356 or visit the website at: www.interorealestate.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Office 365− Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Office− Microsoft Outlook 2010− Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

Partner Slalom Consulting