Broadening the business possibilities. Peter Fourie doesn’t just manage his Just Call Communications business, he lives it:

“Before we take any solution to market we want to try it ourselves.  I want to see how it works and what features it has. It’s never just the product, it’s about how we bring it to the customer and how it impacts on their business.”

The Challenge

Mobility and collaboration Just Call Communications is a technology services provider, based on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. “We specialise is cellular technology,” says Fourie. “We have to believe in a product before we can begin to sell it.”

His company, founded in 1998, has grown to a staff of 10. The business now operates nationwide, working with clients ranging in size from multinationals to local small businesses it sells mobile solutions into cities and rural areas to work effectively, Fourie and his team must be available at all times, and have full access to client information.

“Mail is now such a big part of our business,” he says. “The ability to share information is vital.” As an independent dealer of both Vodacom, Fourie was well aware of the potential of Microsoft Office 365 from Vodacom. A cloudbased solution, Office 365 would allow Just Call Communications to access applications from anywhere, from any device. Business-class email and shared calendars means staff remain in touch and in-sync.

“It was obvious Office 365 could offer two benefits,” says Fourie. “It would clearly help us to perform better as a business, and it was also something I could see being of great interest to our clients.”

Office 365 makes sharing information a pleasure. I don’t need to be in the office; I can go on holiday and still take care of business. Peter Fourie, founder, Just Call Communications

First Mover Advantage

Just Call Communications became one of the first users of Office 365 in South Africa, in August 2013. Fourie says he had no qualms about being an early adopter. “That suits us fine. We like to have a look at any new technology ourselves.  A lot of the implementation was self-done, and we took plenty of valuable insight from that. â€œIt’s something we’re using all day, every day â€" which gives us tremendous confidence when taking it to market.” Fourie says, while cost savings have been a happy consequence, the major impact has been on productivity.  â€œWe’ve not bothered to calculate the savings. Having access to our information, from anywhere, at any time, is priceless. The email alone represents great value for money.” In particular, he says, Lync has changed the way his office collaborates on projects.  â€œIt has completely changed our workflow. When I need an answer I ping out an Instant Message, either from my mobile or desktop. Staff don’t need to drop everything, they can ping an answer straight back. It certainly beats shouting across the office!”

The bottom line transforming client meetings Fourie says he now spends at least half his time out of the office, with no downtime. He says Office 365 will encourage mobility for his staff, and allow the business to be more productive, more of the time.

He says the practicality of Lync has proved itself in client meetings: “We were in a meeting with the managing director of one of our clients, regarding the suitability of the latest Samsung tablet. “During the meeting, we downloaded some apps through Samsung play store and demonstrated the functionality.  However, there were one or two issues where my knowledge of the device was incomplete. â€œWhile the client was testing the apps, I was able to unobtrusively connect with my wife, Tertia, via Lync from my iPhone. She uses the same tablet, and was able to quickly give me the information I needed. We walked out of that meeting on a high having satisfied the client’s concerns, knowing there was no unfinished business to attend to.” The next step, he says, is to integrate Office 365 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution, currently under Proof of Concept: By integrating CRM with Office 365 we’ll have one dashboard to control our entire customer database. I think this will give us a real edge over the competition.

Benefits

• Email, contacts and calendars: Staff can stay in touch and insync, wherever, whenever.
• Secure file sharing: Staff are able to access data on the go, via tablets, smartphones or laptops.  Teams can update files together, regardless of location. “Effectively, it means we can take the office with us,” says Fourie.
• Online conferencing: Screen sharing and real-time note-taking means Just Call Communications can manage projects nationwide, bringing staff together online and improving its ability to win (and service) new business.
• Zero hosting fees: As a small and growing business, Just Call Communications enjoys all the benefits of the cloud â€" the scalability, the storage, but without the hosting fees or high start-up costs.
• Familiar applications: Allows staff to access their usual business applications - Word, PowerPoint and Excel, from mobile devices.

Content and formatting remain intact once staff return to their desks. 

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