Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce TCO and impro…

Software for the Agile Business.
Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce
total cost of operations and improve
workgroup collaboration
With operations in over 20 countries, annual sales approaching $5
billion and core businesses in building products, construction materials
and energy, Boral is a leading Australian-based company that
recognises the important role PC technology plays in keeping ahead of
the competition.
Company Profile
Employing over 22,000 people internationally, Boral is a large, Sydney
based, building and construction materials company. Built on six
separate operating divisions - Australian Construction Materials, Cement, Clay
& Concrete Products, Plasterboard, Timber and Boral USA – Boral is determined
to continue to strongly improve its operating performance over the short and
long term, an ambition they are beginning to realise with the assistance of
Microsoft’s Office 2000.
Business Scenario
Developing a Standard Operating Environment (SOE) for in excess of
5,000 desktops brings with it the need to select software tools that are
both powerful and – possibly even more importantly – flexible enough
to meet the diverse needs of such a large number of users.
According to Boral’s Technology Strategy Manager, Mr Stephen
Mayhew, the Boral SOE Working Group had three key objectives for the
new environment. These were Year 2000 compliance; introduce the
latest standard desktop technology and enhance collaboration and to
stabilise the desktop, thereby reducing downtime and helpdesk calls.
1 Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce TCO and improve
workgroup collaboration
“When the Office 2000 roll out
is complete we expect to have
a 30 per cent reduction in
helpdesk calls relating to the
desktop.”
—Stephen Mayhew, Technology
Organisation
Boral
Web Site
www.boral.com.au
Industry
Strategy Manager, Boral
Building Products, Construction
Materials and Energy
Business Scenario Summary
To provide a more robust and
functional Standard Operating
Environment for more than 5,000
desktops, Boral has adopted
Microsoft Office 2000 as a main
element of its desktop strategy.
Year 2000 compliance, reduced
helpdesk calls and Improved
workgroup collaboration have
been just some of the benefits
experienced by the company as a
result.

Business Solution
Total Cost of Ownership Reduction
“Every company is interested in reducing the costs associated with
supporting the desktop,” states Mr Mayhew. “With Office 2000, even
though we’re still in the process of rolling out the new SOE to all the
desktops around Australia, we’re already experiencing a reduction in
calls to the helpdesk. When the roll out is complete – which is
scheduled to be 30 September 1999 – we expect to have a 30 per cent
reduction in helpdesk calls relating to the desktop.”
Customising the service
One contributor to this 30 per cent reduction is Boral’s use of
customised help messages. We have an extensive intranet within
Boral, which contains, among many other things, an increasing number
of application-specific help files,” explains Mr Mayhew. “Because we
now have a standard desktop application toolset that can be easily
customised, we’ve been able to incorporate Boral intranet links directly
in Office 2000’s help files.
“In this way, we’re better able to provide on-line help that relates
specifically to the more common issues that confront our user
community, particularly with the customisations we’ve undertaken with
Office 2000 to make it fit in more precisely with our SOE.”
Best of Breed
On the issue of customisation, Office 2000 has delivered Boral IT staff
with additional means of dramatically reducing time overheads. Mr
Mayhew comments: “In comparison with Office 97, Office 2000 allows
our IT personnel to get a much greater level of customisation, and it’s
much easier to do – we found that customisation can be done in about
10 per cent of the time it previously took us to complete.”
Another Office 2000 feature that Mr Mayhew believes will greatly assist
in reducing support costs is auto-repair. In what could best be
described as a further step towards ‘smart’ software, Office 2000,
through the Microsoft Windows Installer, can automatically detect and
repair problems such as missing files and registry settings. For
example, if a user inadvertently deletes an .exe or .dll file, the software
2 Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce TCO and improve
workgroup collaboration
Business Solution Summary
Windows 2000 has been deployed
as both desktop and server
operating system, replacing other
platforms to create an integrated
environment.

will automatically reinstall the required file – without any intervention
from the user or a call to the helpdesk. “We expect these new features
in Office 2000 will help us to dramatically reduce our total cost of
ownership on the desktop”, summarises Mr Mayhew.
Benefits
Knowledge Sharing
For Boral, the integration of Office 2000 and Web technologies also
represents the opportunity to better utilise its corporate knowledge.
Prior to the Office 2000 implementation, many business-general
documents were stored on local hard drives. This brought with it the
difficulties associated with isolated islands of information as opposed to
enterprise-wide accessibility.
“Because the Office 2000 applications have been designed to be Web-
integrated, we’re now able to place more and more of our
documentation on the intranet,” explains Mr Mayhew. “Documents can
then be easily accessed as well as imported from and exported to the
intranet by any user running Office 2000.”
Enhancing Collaboration
Another key objective of the SOE roll out was to expand collaboration.
Here, Office 2000 is delivering Boral staff with tools that are being
adopted almost as rapidly as e-mail.
With the Office Server Extensions, Office 2000 supports Web and
Document Discussions; new collaboration features that enable users to
work together on the creation of new content or comment on existing
content, while retaining the document’s integrity.
“We started using these features within the SOE Working Group and
the response was incredible,” states Mr Mayhew. “My belief is that once
we have completed our Office 2000 rollout, the discussions feature will
experience what I refer to as a fission reaction. That is, once a single
person starts using it, there will be an almost exponential increase in
its use.”
3 Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce TCO and improve
workgroup collaboration
Benefits
Office 2000 deployment has
resulted in significant cost savings
and reduced PC downtime. Office
2000’s flexibility in assisting users
to customise files and applications
has further driven increased
internal knowledge sharing and
collaboration.
Microsoft Technology
• Microsoft Office 2000
• Microsoft Windows NT®
Server
• Terminal Server Edition

Flexibility
In late 1998 CMG decided to implement Microsoft Windows NT Server
Terminal Server Edition as its standard server operating system, while
all other groups continued with Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0.
“CMG’s use of Terminal Server meant we needed to ensure that
whatever components we established as core to the new SOE would
‘behave’ properly under both Windows NT Server and Terminal Server,”
says Mr Mayhew.
“CMG has a significant number of relatively low-end PCs,” explains Mr
Mayhew. “So Terminal Server was actually a logical solution for that
group. Fortunately for us, Office 2000 has been designed to work
seamlessly with Terminal Server, meaning we are able to roll out the
latest desktop software while protecting our investment in older
desktop hardware.
“Overall, Office 2000 gives us the ability to implement a suite of
powerful desktop applications that meet the key requirements of our
5,100 desktop users. Office 2000 enables our users to collaborate and
share knowledge more effectively, while dramatically reducing our
upgrade and ongoing maintenance costs.”
4 Boral adopts Microsoft Office 2000 to reduce TCO and improve
workgroup collaboration
For more information
For more information about Microsoft
products or services in Australia,
contact Microsoft on 13 20 58. To
access information via the Web, go to
www.microsoft.com/australia/business
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