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Prime Restaurants
Selected Case Studies
Canadian Restauranteurs Fill-Up on Microsoft Vista, Office and Exchange Technologies
In 1980, three entrepreneurs from Sudbury, Ontario joined forces to open the first Casey's Restaurant in their hometown. Today, Prime Restaurants of Canada Inc. (PRC) franchises, owns and operates casual dining restaurant chains and premium pubs in Canada under the East Side Mario's, Casey's, and Fionn MacCool's brands. PRC achieved significant growth in the last decade, expanding from 88 restaurants in 1997 to approximately 160 today. As a result of this growth, PRC needed to upgrade its legacy technologies to facilitate faster and better communications with franchisees, develop a central location for staff to access information, and all around tighter security. The organization turned to the Buchanan Associates, a Gold Certified Microsoft® partner, to address these needs with the newly released Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, Windows Vista™ operating system, and 2007 Microsoft® Office system.
Company Overview
Prime Restaurants of Canada Inc. (PRC) franchises, owns and operates casual dining restaurant chains and premium pubs in Canada under three core brands: East Side Mario's, Casey's, and Fionn MacCool's. Today, PRC has grown to approximately 160 locations across Canada. As a result of this growth, PRC needed to upgrade its legacy technologies in order to address its current business needs. Processes, such as budget approvals, were manual and PRC recognized that it could bring efficiencies to its business by implementing technologies to automate workflow processes. In addition, PRC wanted to improve lines of communication across its franchises and to its staff.
Business Challenge
“At PRC, we have two customers: our staff and our franchisee community,” says Eric Lee, Director of IT. “We wanted to provide a unified I.T. experience to both stakeholders and we knew upgrading our existing IT infrastructure to deliver a single-point of access to information is the foundation. This single point of access will promote the efficiency, security and accuracy that our customers are demanding."
Previously, PRC used Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Portal Server in conjunction with a legacy email system to coordinate menus, approve budgets, and provide invoices and training videos to its franchises. However, with no built-in automated workflow in its existing infrastructure, emailing documents back and forth was a common means of obtaining approvals, which meant there was no real version control and many inefficiencies.
“With restaurants across the country, we provided a fully Web-based system to ensure our people had access to everything they required – like menus, recipes, training videos, operational documents and discussion forums - whenever they needed it regardless of head office hours. All they need is an Internet connection,” says Henry Wong, Manager of Network Infrastructure and Security, Prime Restaurants of Canada.
Solution
Working with Buchanan Associates, a Gold Certified Microsoft partner, PRC was introduced to the upcoming releases of Windows Vista™ operating system, the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, and Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007. PRC quickly saw that the new features in each product, coupled with the tight integration between them, would position the organization for success. “Our goal with PRC, as with all of our customers, is to address and solve their business needs as effectively and as economically as possible,” says Jesse Migliaro, Managing Consultant, Buchanan Associates. “We looked at each area that PRC wanted to change: improved remote user connectivity; improved workflow; remote back-up and data recovery; enhanced security, and identified that Windows Vista, 2007 Office system, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 addressed each of these issues, and more.”
PRC was initiated into the customer beta testing programs for each of the new Microsoft technology offerings, and Buchanan Associates got to work implementing the products in their environment in order to roll-out across the organization by the time the final versions were made available to volume licensing customers worldwide.
Business Benefits
Since deploying Windows Vista, 2007 Office system, and Exchange Server 2007, PRC has seen a number of benefits including better security and content management, simplified collaboration between staff and franchisees and overall time and cost-savings.
Simplifying How People Work Together
Exchange Server 2007 delivers a fast, seamless, and familiar Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2007 experience with no need for extra software or services beyond an Internet connection. When combined with PRC's Office SharePoint portal, Office Outlook 2007 helps improve collaboration and productivity throughout PRC by making it easier to find and share data, documents, and schedules from virtually any location.
“Outlook Web Access aligns with our Web-based, thin client strategy for our franchisees across Canada,” says Lee. “It provided the missing link that we were looking for to complete our single point of access strategy for our SharePoint portal."
Improved Security
With new features like an enhanced bi-directional firewall enabled by default, BitLocker Full Drive Encryption, and built-in Windows Defender spyware protection, Windows Vista provides PRC the confidence that its business information and IT infrastructure is safe.
“We have a large mobile workforce, so ensuring that information on our laptops is secure is crucial,” says Wong. “With features like BitLocker Full Drive Encryption we know that important information stored on a lost or stolen laptop is inaccessible to outsiders.”
As an added layer of protection, Windows Vista also includes many features which can head-off potential security threats. For example, PRC can leverage User Account Control (UAC) to help block its users from downloading unsafe programs, while Internet Explorer® 7 can help improve security during Internet browsing. Implementing enhanced Group Policies as well can help prevent the theft of corporate data by blocking the use of removable storage devices.
Better Content Management
Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 helps streamline PRC business processes that are a drain on organizational productivity by using electronic forms and out-of-the-box workflow processes. Additionally, SharePoint Portal Server 2007 allows PRC to define customized document management policies, controlling access rights at a per-item level and tracking content through document-auditing settings. In addition, Information Rights Management helps ensure that proprietary and confidential information is better protected even if it is not connected to a server – an important feature for PRC since it has internal staff and purely Web-based franchisees nationwide.
“SharePoint Portal Server 2007's content management, workflow process and electronic form will transform our budgeting process for over 150 restaurants distributed across Canada,” says Lee. “The old process was manual and extremely cumbersome to manage. With the new system, budgets are entered in InfoPath forms and stored in one central location for version control. We believe the new system will completely elevate the budgeting process from an annual drudgery to an annual review of business opportunities.”
Time and Cost Savings
In addition to improved content management, better collaboration through workflow, and improved security, a company’s bottom line is always a key focus. By deploying Windows Vista, the 2007 Office system, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, PRC will continue to achieve further tangible staff time and cost-savings.
Deployment efficiencies made available in Windows Vista was the starting place for PRC to achieve a return on its investment. Desktop images are the fastest way to deploy an operating system, but they have not historically been part of the standard Windows operating system installation. Previously, it could cost enterprises an estimated $1,000 per PC to create and maintain an image; using the single-image deployment capabilities and tools available with Windows Vista will make it easier for PRC to reduce cost-per-desktop deployment to under $100.
“New technology deployments are disruptive to the work environment, and sometimes resulted in data loss. When that happens, it takes up a significant portion of an IT department’s time,” says Wong. “The new deployment tools in Windows Vista coupled with Exchange Server’s high availability functions minimize server downtime, and maintains our productivity. Instead of wasting time or money, we’re saving on both.”