Scheduling Savior: Office 365 Cloud Migration Unites Global Kiromic Team

Company: Kiromic
Industry: Healthcare
Employees: 25
Overview: With employees spread across the globe, mail space limitations with hosted Exchange created ongoing headaches. Planning meetings with no shared calendars was also becoming increasingly problematic.
Solution: Office 365 migration and live instructor-led training

Kiromic is a Texas-based biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies that combat cancer. With 25 users spread across the world, scheduling meetings with a global team and no shared calendars was increasingly problematic, especially for Executive Assistant Trish Faulkner. After searching for email solutions to remedy the scheduling nightmare, the Kiromic team realized an Office 365 cloud migration was the answer.

The Business Case for an Office 365 Cloud Migration

Using a POP-hosted email, organization issues were commonplace, ate up valuable time and created confusion. The Kiromic team worked primarily through calendar invitations, so if an executive didn’t accept the invite, meetings wouldn’t get put on the calendar. Without a centralized system for storing and scheduling invites, important meetings would quickly fall through the cracks.

Mail space limitations with hosted Exchange also created ongoing headaches for the Kiromic team.

“It seemed like every other week something was down, somebody wasn’t receiving emails or somebody sent emails that weren’t received,” Trish said.

Kiromic’s growing global team needed a comprehensive email and scheduling solution that kept everyone on the same page — regardless of their location — and provided ample storage so team members could work uninterrupted. Beyond scheduling and mail space, the Kiromic team also aimed to:

• Gain remote access to documents and information from mobile devices
• Receive ample training
• Streamline and consolidate all email and scheduling into a single secure solution 
• Improve collaboration throughout the organization

After nearly 6 months of researching email solutions, the Kiromic team was recommended Office 365 for its cloud-based email solution and Agile IT’s cloud migration services to complete the migration.

By investing in an Office 365 cloud migration, the team could minimize the back-and-forth of scheduling meetings, reduce costs associated with hosting and maintaining Exchange and work more efficiently.

Ironing Out Office 365 Cloud Migration Issues

As an executive assistant, Trish had little technical expertise and went into the email migration unsure what to expect. She knew the process would take time but was still surprised by the complexity involved.

To safeguard against potential snags in the Office 365 cloud migration process, Agile IT walked the Kiromic team through a test migration. This also provided Kiromic with proof of the migration tool for email, allowed them to test the Office 365 functionality from an IT standpoint and complemented admin training.

However, organizing a migration with a team in multiple time zones proved difficult. For instance, during the testing phase, ensuring all computers were running at the same time — during daytime for some users and nighttime for others — required some planning on Kiromic’s side.

“The best part was [Agile IT] held our hands through this process, which was very scary at times,” Trish said. “We have people who work all over the world. For it to go as smooth as it did, while we were undergoing another major project, and for Agile IT to be so available, is invaluable.”

Ramping Up Users With Office 365 Training

Another challenge of having team members spread across the world was getting everyone ramped up with Office 365. Without effective training, team members couldn’t take advantage of the efficiency and collaboration of Office 365 and the cloud. To overcome this hurdle, Agile IT offered live instructor-led training for Kiromic’s global team.

“The training session was amazing,” Trish said. “Having resources and videos available to the team will help them adjust and begin to fully utilize Office 365.”

So far, adoption has gone smoothly. Armed with resources and videos, Trish has been able to walk users through most questions or reached out to the team’s dedicated Agile IT Cloud Technician for quick answers. Although introducing new technology in the workplace is often met with resistance, Trish has only heard positive feedback from Kiromic users.

Leveraging the Investment in Office 365

Since moving to cloud-based Office 365, organization has been the most notable benefit for the Kiromic team.

“My quality of work (and life) has improved so much since I can send invites, people are getting where they need to be and changes can quickly be made by phone, computer or from home,” Trish said. “It has been worth every dime we spent.”

According to Trish, not one person has missed a meeting since moving to Office 365.

The team has also begun to utilize Skype for Business, enabling global team members to easily collaborate virtually face-to-face. With its user-friendly interface and automatic configuration set up, users have quickly adopted this virtual meeting solution with minimal training needed.

Despite her initial apprehensions, Trish said the cloud migration and adoption process could not have gone better.

“Everything went real smooth, and the support was amazing,” Trish said. “I would recommend not only the software, which has been great for my work and mindset, but especially the Agile IT team. They were there every time we had a question and just available – I really appreciate that.”

Need help planning your Office 365 migration? Let our team of cloud consultants answer your questions, or learn more about our AgileAscend migration process today.