Deliver Australia works with local partners to provide transport solutions across the Australian continent. Its business runs on a Microsoft Office 365 and Windows Azure cloud infrastructure. The company sought a process diagramming tool and chose Microsoft Visio 2013 because it works in a cloud environment. Now, Deliver Australia and its partners can co-author transport process diagrams to better serve customers, who can track their deliveries by viewing dynamic diagrams with near real-time information. By using Visio 2013 for data visualization, Deliver Australia has boosted its competitive advantage and improved its relationships with both its customers and partners.

Sitro Group Australia Pty Ltd (SGA) was expanding fast and needed to streamline its sales order processing, financial reporting, and inventory management. SGA deployed and extended an enterprise resource planning platform using successive versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP. Now, sales orders are processed faster and more reliably. With immediate access to comprehensive data, the finance team can ensure debtors are diligently pursued and creditors are paid on time. Product despatch occurs faster with fewer errors, while logistics and sales staff receive specially configured reports that enable them to work more efficiently and deliver a higher level of customer service.

As part of an ongoing effort to support its mobile workers and to keep up with the latest technologies, the Century Council deployed Windows 8 Pro to run on tablets and desktop PCs. Soon, the operating system will be deployed organizationwide, but the council is already seeing increased productivity from employees who can easily connect to office computers from tablets. Some projects have been trimmed from hours to minutes.

The city of Luxor, Egypt, wants to help up to 12,000 daily visitors to its temples, tombs, and other historical sites get the most out of their trip, while supporting its tourism industry by helping visitors find tour guides, hotels, restaurants, transportation, and other services. In 2012, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) launched the Luxor Mobile Portal, powered by Windows Azure and designed specifically for smartphones running the Windows Phone 7 operating system. Now visitors can now use a single mobile application to take virtual tours of historical sites and locate services in Luxor, and MCIT has helped support one of the most important segments of the Luxor economy.

Based in London, Make is an award-winning international practice that designs complex and iconic buildings. The firm is 100 percent owned by its 134 employees and has seen continual growth by ensuring it had the best technology in place. In May 2012, Make got the opportunity to use two tablets running the Windows 8 Pro operating system. It also ran Windows 8 Pro on two desktop computers. The receptionist replaced her iPad with a tablet, which made it much easier to accomplish daily tasks. The firm tested the operating system by installing its line-of-business software—including computer-aided design software—on it. Employees are delighted with the interface, speed, and reliability of the operating system. Make benefits from an enhanced reception area, an outstanding user experience, support for its architectural needs, and improved productivity.

Human resource consultants at PRM Consulting Group (PRM) help clients attract and retain employees, including executive search services and performance management. PRM sought a way for its employees to have the advantages of both mobility and connectivity. It became an early adopter of tablets running Windows 8 Pro. The company benefits from increased mobility, improved efficiency, and a better balance of work and life commitments.

Rapid growth at Saudi Electricity Company—the main electricity provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—meant the organization needed a versatile and easy-to-manage messaging environment. It chose to upgrade its Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 solution to take advantage of the enhancements in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Since the implementation, the organization has achieved many of its goals, including a more streamlined messaging infrastructure. This has resulted in a reduction in server numbers from 43 to 25 and operating savings of 40 percent. Most importantly, all 27,000 employees can access a consistent, reliable, and more efficient email and messaging service—whether they’re in one of the 400 offices or on the road. This helps them meet personal goals and dramatically improve customer service.

Carl’s Jr. of Las Vegas, a quick-service restaurant chain, wanted to upgrade its point-of-service (POS) solution to improve profitability and customer service with an intelligent system that connects local POS devices with a corporate network. The company also needed centralized tools to support business growth. To meet its goals, Carl’s Jr. implemented a POS system based on PAR EverServ® QSR software and Windows Embedded. Now the company has an end-to-end solution that helps it serve customers faster and gain better control of food and labor costs. Carl’s Jr. has also eased management and business expansion with cloud-based reporting and administration tools.

Over a three-year period that began in 2008, the Trade and Land Property Registry of Mexico D.F. completely modernized the way it provides services. In that project, the largest in the institution’s 140-year history, the Registry deployed a centralized management solution and began digitalizing its entire archive. Today, the Registry has reduced the time required for preparing and filing deeds by 65 percent, streamlined customer service, and improved the legal certainty of records—which offers economic and social benefits for citizens of the district and the country as a whole.