GNZCC Case Study

Managed Desktop Solution for German-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce.

Project Background:

Originally founded as the New Zealand-German Business Association Inc. in 1983, the German-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce Inc. (GNZCC), as it is now named, has become an important partner in fostering bilateral trade between Germany and New Zealand.

One of GNZCC’s main objectives is to advise German and New Zealand companies on market development and to support and consult both German and New Zealand exporters and importers in their quest to establish a trading relationship.

Membership is available to any company or individual involved in business relations between Germany and New Zealand.

Business Challenge:

In addition to resolving the issue of an aging server, there was also a need to upgrade SAP Business One (the financial and CRM system used by GNZCC) to the latest release, as well as a desire to make use of the new Microsoft Office functionality available in Office 365.

Solutions Used:

Managed Desktop, Office 365

Customer Profile

The German-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce has been in operation since 1983. The GNZCC is an important partner in fostering bilateral trade between Germany and New Zealand.

IT Challenges:

With an on-premises server reaching the end of its life and guarantee period in early 2017, as well as extended maintenance, the GNZCC decided to take the opportunity to review its current IT set up.

GNZCC’s existing IT services provider proposed moving to a remote desktop solution using Office 365 and Sharepoint, however this required moving away from SAP B1, which did not suit GNZCC’s needs. A request for proposal was therefore sent to three managed IT services providers, including Lucidity.

With no in-house IT staff, local support was an important consideration for GNZCC, as well as service hosted in data centres in New Zealand.

The solution:

After careful evaluation of the available technologies, combined with positive feedback from existing Lucidity clients, the GNZCC decided to partner with Lucidity as their new managed IT services provider.

With staff who regularly travel overseas, the ability to work remotely and easily log on to all their files and line of business applications was a key benefit offered by the solution.

Lucidity’s Managed Desktop solution, offered a cloud based remote desktop service integrated with Office 365, that could importantly also provide access to SAP B1.

Access to 24/7 IT support, as well as the security of having services hosted out of top tier data centres, located in Auckland and Hamilton, also played an important factor in the decision.

The Results:

Monique Surges, Chief Executive Officer at GNZCC, as well as other staff members, report on the benefits that Managed Desktop is now providing the organisation

An easy transition for users

“Everything ran incredibly smoothly and the Lucidity staff really tried to work through any issues as quickly as possible. As we were already using Outlook it wasn’t too hard to transition – the new look Microsoft Office took a little bit to get used to, but no training was required.”

The flexibility to work from anywhere

“Whilst recently travelling overseas, Managed Desktop was fantastic – don’t have the same connect issues that I used to. Having full access to our shared drive also makes a big difference, no more having to download files to my desktop beforehand, and asking the team back home to email me files.”

The ability to access work from any device

“The ability to work off an iPad is a big bonus, no more lugging the heavy laptop around!”

Easy access to line of business applications

“We love the fact we can access SAP B1 completely and all our files as well – previously used a VPN onto the server to access files but could not really work with SAP B1.”

Reduced IT Costs

“The fact we don’t need to have top end computers/laptops anymore and don’t have to constantly pay for software updates to stay on top is a real bonus for a small office like ours. The savings on hardware will be noticeable as we would have had to upgrade various machines this year if we had not moved to a remote desktop – and would have had to also purchase new Microsoft office packages for the entire office.”