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Torpedo Garage

Challenge:

Improving Employee Acceptance for New Cloud-based eMail Platform

Industry: Automotive

Products: OWA Desktop

Torpedo Garage Hits Its Target With New OWA Desktop, Giving Employees Outlook Amenities They Miss Most

Situation

Like so many things about Germany, Torpedo Garage is a model of efficiency. The company—actually comprised of 19 wholly-owned auto dealerships—has built a reputation for quality and service dating back to 1928, roughly the time that the founders began selling Mercedes-Benz automobiles in the town of Kaiserslautern.

Today Torpedo Garage is still headquartered in that same city, but its business extends throughout the German Bundesland (state) of Rhineland-Palatinate. Over 600 employees are part of the Torpedo Garage family, selling and servicing the full range of Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Smart automobiles.

Not long ago Torpedo Garage’s IT team set about upgrading the email capabilities for its sales, support and executive staff to Microsoft Exchange. Having used another well-known email server product, the company wished to take advantage of Exchange’s more advanced feature set and archival tools.

According to Stefan Schweitzer, Torpedo Garage’s IT Administrator, the decision to pair Exchange with Microsoft’s Web-based email client, Outlook Web Access (OWA), was due to the increased mobility of its staff. “Many people who use email in our organization don’t have their own PC. Being able to quickly access email from any computer raises everyone’s productivity,” he noted.

As companies transfer more and more of their key business functions to the cloud employee acceptance becomes an issue. “A lot of people want an email user experience that mimics Microsoft Outlook,” said Schweitzer.

His search for a better OWA interface led him to Messageware. “Messageware’s capabilities presentation covered a number of productivity solutions that could enhance OWA,” recalled Schweitzer. “But it was the company’s newest product that really got my attention.”

Solution

After asking a few questions about Torpedo Garage’s new email environment, Messageware’s account team suggested that Schweitzer look at Messageware’s OWA Desktop application.

OWA Desktop, a thin-client product, is the first-ever desktop client for Outlook Web Access. Now, users can experience OWA in much the same way as Outlook—without ever opening up a Web browser. Pop-up “new mail” and calendar reminder notifications, personal contact import & export, regional/national/religious calendar import, one-click email composition and much more, are all available for OWA users thanks to Messageware OWA Desktop.

“Our first reaction to OWA Desktop was ‘Wow’,” said Schweitzer, who immediately requested a test of the product in Torpedo Garage’s environment. “The next step was to ask if modifications were possible. In order for us to deploy OWA Desktop it would need to be in German. We also needed accommodations for German time zones, packaging for automated distribution, granular feature on/off settings, and a few other things.”

Messageware assured Schweitzer that it could meet his specific customer requirements. Days later, the company’s engineering team had built a deployment pack that allowed Torpedo Garage administrators to customize virtually any aspect of the OWA Desktop client. “Messageware said its goal was to make Torpedo Garage’s transition to OWA seamless for its employees from Day One,” commented Schweitzer. “With the deployment pack we knew the process would be as easy for our IT admins as it would be for the rest of the company.”

With OWA Desktop, organizations can leverage all the benefits of cloudbased email, without transitional headaches. It’s customizable, easy to deploy, flexable – and best of all it saves real money.

Stefan Schweitzer, IT Administrator

Results

After 15 years of working with its previous email client, Schweitzer and Torpedo Garage were ready for a challenging transition to Exchange and Outlook Web Access. The reality, however, was far less difficult than anticipated.

“Most of our employees are completely happy with Outlook Web Access, which is remarkable considering how long we were using the other email platform,” Schweitzer reported. “I attribute this largely to OWA Desktop.”

According to Torpedo Garage, Messageware’s OWA Desktop is a perfect example of how to satisfy customers with the thin OWA email client. “Most employees just want a couple of key features in OWA, so it functions and feels like Outlook,” commented Schweitzer. “With OWA Desktop, organizations can leverage all the benefits of cloud-based email, without the transitional headaches. It’s customizable, easy to deploy, flexible—and best of all it saves real money.”

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