10 Ways Microsoft Office 2007 Can Save Companies Money

In economic times like these, organisations look everywhere in efforts to evaluate the value and possible cost savings around the business.

One software suite that is examined is Microsoft Office System.  Office is considered by some as expensive infrastructure, and not as a business value.   With that said, is there a case for considering how the 2007 Office System can save you money and operational costs?  Sure thing, check out some of these ideas – all supported with real data from our customers.

1. Reduce Storage Costs

Open XML formats in Office 2007 reduce the file sizes of documents by around 50% and often as much as 75% avoiding bandwidth and hard drive costs increases.  I have an Excel spreadsheet from my team that is 53MB in size.  When I save in the Open XML file format it becomes 13MB.  It is still a big file, but is much smaller and more manageable, and is saving space in SharePoint, Hard Drives and Email in this format.

For example, the compact file formats helped Hobart Service avoid USD $50,000 per year of additional bandwidth usage costs.  “This means we won’t have to buy more disk space for some time to come.”

See the Hobart Service Case Study

2. Reduce Cost for BI Solutions

With SharePoint and Excel 2007, create live, interactive business Intelligence (BI) portals that assemble and display business information from disparate sources.  Dashboards can be easily created with Web Parts, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Business Data Connectivity technologies (BDC).

For example, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, a Johnson & Johnson company, expects that consolidation of the tools needed for BI it will be able to save more than $200,000 per year in licensing costs.

See the Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Case Study

3. Reduce Licensing Costs

2007 Microsoft Office Add-in allows you to export and save to PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs.  Adobe Acrobat is a very feature rich product and is able to perform many publishing, forms, collaboration and markup tasks – it’s most common feature though by many users is to simply create PDF files from other applications such as Microsoft Office. 

For example, Honeywell Aerospace is experiencing higher efficiency and reduced costs due to the Save As PDF add-in for the 2007 Microsoft Office programs.

See the Honeywell Aerospace Case Study

Get the Save As PDF add-in from https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en 

4. Reduce Help Desk Costs

The Office 2007 user interface is designed to make it easier to discover new features and spend less time searching for commands and capabilities.

For example, Citrix expects “at least a 10 percent reduction in user support requests, thanks to the revamped interface and better cross-program integration within Microsoft Office Professional 2007”.

See the Citrix Case Study

Additionally, research shows that employees estimate an 18 percent improvement in time to complete tasks with Office 2007.

5. Reduce IT Support – Project Workspaces

Office Groove 2007 makes it simple to create, customise, organise and work in collaborative workspaces without IT assistance.

For example, the US Federal Aviation Administration finds “In many situations, projects teams can use Groove 207 and not need a pricey IT staff person devoted to the project.  Anyone with manager-level access can create a Groove 2007 virtual workspace on the fly, with no programming knowledge.”

See the FAA Case Study.

6. Reduce Travel Costs

Office Communicator can help save travel cost by shifting from in-person meetings to web conferences and live chats.

For example, Podravka found “Office Communicator 2007 gives executives a credible alternative to face-to-face meetings, we expect business travel to drop 20%”.

See the Podravka Case Study

Groove workspaces allow project teams to effectively work together across departments and agencies.  Travel costs are reduced as teams require less in-person meetings.

For example, Petrosea has decreased its staff globally, reduced its travel costs by 20% and been able to reduce it’s overall IT budget by 25%.

See the Petrosea Case Study

7. Reduce Paper and Printing Costs

With InfoPath 2007 you can create and deploy electronic forms solutions to gather information efficiently and reliably.  OneNote 2007 can be used to replace paper files and notebooks.

For example Nypro found “although it seems a small thing, using paper forms across the company was expensive.  With InfoPath we can significantly reduce the amount of paper we use, saving us up to $2 million a year.”

See the Nypro Case Study

8. Reduce Marketing Costs

The SmartArt features of Office 2007 allow anyone to create sophisticated special effects and graphics in documents and presentations – with only one click and without the need to engage an external graphic’s design shop.

For example Principal Asset found “by not having to enlist an outside marketing-communciations firm, we’ll save an anticipated $10,000 yearly”.

For another example, Honeywell found “the new SmartArt graphics help me create a presentation in a fraction of the time it used to take.”

See the Principal Asset Case Study and the Honeywell Case Study.

9. Reduce Training Costs

In OneNote 2007, anybody can create and distribute a training course.  Plus, you can search for text within the entire notebooks, text within pictures, and for spoken words in audio and video recordings.

For example, the US Coast Guard training instructors can prepare an entire course – complete with documentation, video clips, and links to web-based resources and present it to students in one simple package.  They say “a tool like OneNote 2007 could save new instructors one full month in training and preparation time…. (and for a single class) hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars in printing costs.”.

See the Coast Guard Case Study

10. Reduce Office Space Costs

With Office Communicator, you can work remotely and call using only an Internet connection – it does not require a VPN to connect to the corporate network.  Outlook 2007 provides an Integrated solution to help you better manager your time and information, while in or out of the office – without the need for VPN to have the same experience as inside your network.

For example, Principal Asset found by providing easier access for mobile and remote users, this has allowed Principal Asset to grow substantially without having to expand office space.  “We are saving up to $5,000 in monthly rent and utilities, on top of the up front costs of adding new furniture and IT infrastructure”.

See the Principal Asset Case Study

Additionally, Microsft Partner SynergyOnline is enjoying global expansion into Australia and Singapore.  They are doing it without getting any office space.  My mate Milan Gross says they are running as a virtual organisation with all employees working together and collaborating with technologies of SharePoint, Outlook and Communicator to virtualise their day-to-day interactions and business management.