Nutreco BPOS Case Study - Avanade

Into the cloud for
improved
collaboration
Nutreco, a Dutch company
listed on the Amsterdam stock
exchange, is an international
organisation specialised in
animal and fish feed. The
Nutreco Holding covers around
130 locations, most of which are
located in agricultural regions
throughout the world.
Business Situation
Nutreco had grown significantly over the last few years
through a large number of acquisitions. These
acquisitions meant that a multitude of different email
platforms were in use across the company. Much of the
organisation worked with Lotus Notes ® 5, while other
platforms such as Lotus Notes 7, Microsoft ® Exchange,
Yahoo ® and Gmail ® were also used.
The diversity in these email platforms made it difficult for
employees across the world to collaborate with each
other. It was, for example, not possible to manage each
other's calendars. It was decided that all organisations
working under the Nutreco flag should be equipped with
the same email platform and, following an internal
evaluation, the Microsoft platform was selected. The
deciding factors for this choice included the scalability of
Microsoft’s product line and the simple and recognizable
user interface.

Business technology
Migration of the email platform was not
the only change required; Nutreco also
wanted to make use of additional
functionality to enable employees to
work together more effectively. Other
Microsoft solutions needed to be
implemented to serve this purpose,
including Office Communicator (OCS)
and LiveMeeting. Nutreco employees
can use these solutions to collaborate
more effectively and share knowledge
more easily. This will improve online
awareness, which, in turn, will result in
higher productivity and faster responses
from all employees.
Nutreco required a platform that was
simple to keep up to date and that met
the requirements of the organisation.
Most of the organisation previously
worked with Lotus Notes, but different
versions of this platform were active
and little maintenance was being
performed.
"Because Nutreco is involved with many
different offices all over the world, the
Microsoft Business Productivity Online
Suite (BPOS), the Microsoft cloud
solution, was the most suitable", says
Jeroen Lanters, infrastructure architect
at Avanade. "All the local offices had
their own IT environment, were
responsible for their local workplaces
and had their own distribution methods
for software. This was a real technical
challenge for Nutreco, because they
had to migrate 5,500 mailboxes in a
very short period of time". However,
the organisation had no experience in
rolling out a new platform worldwide.
©2011 Avanade Inc. All rights reserved.
Working at locations scattered across
different time zones meant that a
precise schedule was necessary, in order
to ensure that all the computers could
be provided with a client within the
limited time available. All the work was
performed centrally from the Nutreco
headquarters in Boxmeer. Nutreco
managed internal time planning and
provided an extensive overview of all
computers present, along with a
schedule, so that everyone knew which
computers would be migrated and
when.
"We decided to migrate four days per
week, always leaving one day free in
case of emergencies", says Frank
Lukassen, Corporate Information
Manager at Nutreco. "The internal
project group, consisting of seven
people, worked very well together with
the Avanade project group. The four
project staff from Avanade had
experience with similar large-scale
migration projects, and this helped us
to avoid many mistakes. The flexibility
of both teams ensured that the
migration created as little disturbance
as possible for the end users".
"In addition to the migration to BPOS,
Avanade also supported us through
training and support while we were
going live", continues Lukassen.
Given that a majority of Nutreco
employees were not familiar with the
Microsoft email platform, plans were
made to train all employees. The project
team trained around 200 people, who
were responsible for passing on the
information to the other employees.
"The internal project group, consisting of
seven people, worked very well together
with the Avanade project group. The four
project staff from Avanade had
experience with similar large-scale
migration projects, and this helped us to
avoid many mistakes. The flexibility of
both teams ensured that the migration
created as little disturbance as possible
for the end users".
— Frank Lukassen
Corporate Information Manager
Nutreco.

Results
The migration project was completed in
seven months. Nutreco is very satisfied
with the new email platform and the
other Microsoft functionality. "The
migration was very beneficial to the end
users", says Hugo Schel, corporate IT
project manager at Nutreco. "There are
a lot of laptops in use within the
company. Previously, users could only
access their emails via the network at
the office, but now our employees have
the flexibility to work anywhere. They
also have access to colleagues' diaries
and can set up video chats, for
example”.
“For Nutreco, it is great that we don't
need any in-house technical knowledge
to manage the server park — for us, this
is a saving in manpower”, continues
Schel. Avanade remained on stand-by
for two months following the
completion of the project, just in case
any problems arose. The consultants
remain available to answer questions
that Nutreco might have about the
BPOS solution.
Following the introduction of Microsoft
Office 365, Nutreco plans to upgrade to
the new platform. "Nutreco will switch
to Microsoft Office 365 within a year of
the introduction of this new version",
says Jeroen Lanters, infrastructure
architect at Avanade. “This will provide
the organisation with the newest
version of the platform. Microsoft is
responsible for the technical
implementation, while Nutreco is
ensuring that all of the preconditions
are satisfied."
About Avanade
Avanade provides business technology services that
connect insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft ®
technologies to help customers realize results. For more
information, visit www.avanade.com.
©2011 Avanade Inc. All rights reserved. The Avanade
name and logo are registered trademarks in the US and
other countries.
About Nutreco
Nutreco is a global leader in animal
nutrition and fish feed. Our advanced
feed solutions are at the origin of food
for millions of consumers worldwide.
Quality, innovation and sustainability
are guiding principles, embedded in
the Nutreco culture from research and
raw material procurement to products
and services for agriculture and
aquaculture. Experience across 100
years brings Nutreco a rich heritage of
knowledge and experience for building
its future.
Nutreco employs almost 10,000
people in 30 countries, with sales in 80
countries. Headquartered in the
Netherlands, Nutreco is listed on the
Euronext stock exchange in
Amsterdam and has annual revenues
approaching EUR 5 billion.
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