The Situation
Sam Hazledine and his team at MedRecruit know that being a doctor can be tough work. That’s why they help doctors realise their career, lifestyle and financial goals, helping them achieve balance through locuming and moving country. Based in Queenstown, with 20 staff spread across Australasia and a network of international contacts, MedRecruit is highly dependent on having high-performing IT systems.
With continued international expansion and the future looking bright, the smooth running of business processes and uninterrupted communications are a must, no matter where in the world a MedRecruit staff member or customer happens to be.
The Pain
MedRecruit was in search of a system free of technical issues. Sam says:
“We wanted a platform that didn’t require us to run our own servers, one that would look after its own maintenance, something 100% reliable that worked all the time; we wanted something we didn’t have to think about.”
With this very clear brief in mind, moving to Microsoft’s Office 365 was a no-brainer for MedRecruit. Offering a set of cloud-based email, calendaring, collaboration and conferencing services, along with web-based versions of Microsoft Office productivity tools such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel, and all at a low monthly fixed price, Office 365 proved to be the perfect, “bulletproof” anywhere, anytime solution for MedRecruit.
Sam says, “Our email is critical to the operation of our business. If it goes down, business stops, we can’t access our records and there are all sorts of things that can’t proceed. These downtimes were time-consuming for us, and an inefficient use of our resources. We needed a robust platform for our business communication that works all the time, without exception. We wanted to get rid of the overhead and time-wastage that was causing strain on our processes.”
Intergen’s General Manager of Managed Services, Nigel Blair explains: “They needed an up-to-date solution that they didn’t have to manage, something they could just consume.”
Collaboration and communication were also high on MedRecruit’s agenda. With staff and customers in scattered locations, communication can prove challenging. Real-time communication and collaboration capabilities were needed, including IM, audio/video calls and online meetings. Microsoft Lync Online, a component of Office 365, provides all this functionality out of the box, giving MedRecruit a sophisticated suite of the latest communication technologies, previously only the domain of large businesses with deep pockets.
The Partnership
Sam says of MedRecruit’s longstanding relationship with Intergen as its IT partner, “We wanted to get the best technical people involved. That’s where Intergen comes in. Intergen has always been great to work with; they are reliable and they do what they say they will. They deliver, which is fantastic.”
MedRecruit’s Office 365 implementation is the latest IT project completed by Intergen, with CRM 2011 implemented in early 2011. And it doesn’t stop with Office 365; there are plans afoot to move to CRM Online, and to revolutionise the MedRecruit finance function with Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
The Gain
With immediate gains and no capital outlay involved, MedRecruit can now get on with its core business activities without IT interruption. The Microsoft Office Suite, complete with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online, is fully available and supported, 24/7, at a fixed monthly cost.
Office 365’s communication features within Lync have proved an instant success with staff. “Communication amongst our team is super important,” says Sam, “and now we can support our team no matter where they are. Through Office 365 we’re able to talk to and message each other, which allows us to stay in touch with what’s happening in both countries. The improved communication is definitely a competitive advantage for us.”
Simple things like organising meetings are made easier. “There are so many little things that help improve efficiencies and are absolutely useful, like instead of walking down the hall to see if someone is free you can check their calendar online, and see their availability via ‘presence’,” he says.
The Future
There are big things in store for MedRecruit, and Office 365 is helping to pave the way to achieving them. “We’re already fully utilising our solution amongst our Australasian operation, and we’re looking at various other international opportunities, so having a robust communication platform is critical, Sam says.” It’s a support mechanism for our international expansion plan.”