We can’t really worry about losing Office 365 data, and both Cloud|AG and AvePoint give us a level of comfort that no content is ever really lost.
As a small business with the majority of its staff working out of remote offices, FoodVentures needed to ensure all of its employees had access to important organizational content – including purchase orders and information on sales leads – at all times. The information also needed to be current for all dispersed team members. “We needed a central repository for all of our company information,” said Lea Long at FoodVentures. “We were heavily reliant on paper-based systems in the past – making it difficult to ensure our workers in the field always had the most up-to-date documentation.”
FoodVentures ultimately began to explore different collaboration solutions in the cloud and decided on Microsoft Office 365. While the platform gave the company the central repository it needed through SharePoint Online, management and adoption proved to be daunting tasks. “Without a dedicated IT resource on staff, we were unable to support SharePoint Online and tailor it to our needs,” Long said. “We needed a way to not only make Office 365 easier for our users, but also ensure the important data we would store on the platform was protected and easily recoverable.”
To make the most of Office 365 for the organization and enlist help managing the platform, Long sought a partner with experience and expertise in the Microsoft Cloud.
Based on a recommendation from another partner, FoodVentures connected with Cloud|AG – a provider of products and services designed to assist companies in maximizing Office 365. FoodVentures implemented ServicePoint365, an Office 365 application designed to simplify SharePoint Online’s user interface and information architecture with preconfigured centers for the company intranet, process management, as well as client and prospect management.
With its new, easy-to-use SharePoint Online environment powered by ServicePoint365, FoodVentures was able to begin taking full advantage of the platform for its business processes. “ServicePoint365 acts as our purchase order management system, allowing us to access the most up-to-date purchase orders at any time to conduct sales analysis or provide reports to vendors,” Long said. “We also use the platform as our CRM system to track our customers and prospects throughout the entire sales process.”
ServicePoint365 enabled FoodVentures’ workers to not only be more productive, but also more proactive and transparent. “Previously, we were a more reactive company, and managing our sales process was a challenge,” Long said. “Our sales team now has a system they can use to record all of their activities online as well as access current information no matter where they are located, and our management team can review all activities without having to get on the phone with a rep.”
With SharePoint Online taking off throughout the organization and business critical data being stored on the system, ensuring all of FoodVentures’ content was protected in the cloud was paramount. For this, the company relied on Cloud|AG’s Managed Services offering, which uses AvePoint’s 100 percent Azure-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application AvePoint Online Services (AOS) to deliver granular content protection, audit reporting, and administration for Office 365. “When managing FoodVentures’ environment, it’s important that we be able to restore content at a granular level easier and faster than Microsoft’s native capabilities will allow,” said David Huseonica, President and CEO of Cloud|AG. “AvePoint Online Services enables us to ensure FoodVentures’ has continual access to their important business data without having to worry about any disruption.”
Having its content managed and backed up by Cloud|AG Managed Services and AvePoint Online Services gives FoodVentures confidence that the information its users need is always there, and quickly restored if a mistake occurs. “We can’t really worry about losing Office 365 data, and both Cloud|AG and AvePoint give us a level of comfort that no content is ever really lost,” Long said.
Using ServicePoint365 and Cloud|AG Managed Services with AvePoint Online Services, FoodVentures can now focus more on growing its business and less on managing the systems behind it. “We had painful experiences with technology in the past, but now we have a system our teams are actually using to be more productive anywhere they go,” Long said. “It’s really changed the way we do business and allowed us to be more efficient than ever.”
FoodVentures Inc is a regional foodservice sales broker, representing manufacturers as well as selling to distributors and chain accounts.
We can’t really worry about losing Office 365 data, and both Cloud|AG and AvePoint give us a level of comfort that no content is ever really lost.