The Background
Founded in 1909, Korman Communities is a fully integrated real estate company with development and management capabilities operating throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, Beverly Hills, and London with a portfolio valuation in excess of $1.5 billion. The portfolio is comprised of more than 7,000 apartments and furnished suites in buildings, ranging from suburban garden-style and mid-rise communities to urban high-rise buildings, all operating under three exciting and innovative residential multi-family brands: AKA, AVE, and ARK.
The Challenge
At Korman Communities, we our innovators, always exploring new technology advancements that can support and improve team member productivity. As our Exchange Server environment aged, it no longer made sense to maintain it internally. We were specifically looking for ease of management, scalability, accessibility and availability. Our messaging system needs to be carefully planned and deployed as not to disrupt business workflow or risk loss of critical data during the migration process. Our choice for a technology partner was a critical business decision.
The Solution
“It is important that our technology partner shares and supports our core values,” says Reena George, director of information technology at Korman Communities. “While we have many values, our chief mantra is QUEST, which stands for quality, uniqueness, excellence, service and teamwork. These values guide everything we do.”
Nortec has continuously met all our technical expectations. They are very responsive, proactive and talented in a broad range of technology, which meets our fast-moving business needs and complex environment.
We researched several solutions, including Microsoft Office 365. “Nortec helped answer any questions we had during our research process, and helped to connect with vendors as necessary,” she says.
George initially thought that a hybrid model would be the optimum solution for her organization, so Nortec piloted a Hybrid model for testing. While the test phase ran smoothly, she still needed to maintain its infrastructure. George decided to move the organization’s mail completely to the cloud. “Nortec helped us with initial setup and developed a migration plan that was executed by Korman’s internal IT team, “ she says.
We are currently moving each of our 25 locations, methodically and systematically. Once the final location is completed, George intends to enlist Nortec for advice on eliminating Exchange from their corporate office.
Benefits
We are already seeing the benefits of having moved our email to the cloud. By migrating our messaging and collaboration environment to Microsoft Office 365, we have provided our employees with familiar tools they can use to collaborate easily and more effectively with their colleagues, both internally and externally. It has also streamlined IT management, avoided some IT costs, and provided the company flexibility to scale its operations up and down efficiently and cost-effectively. While long-term savings have yet to be calculated, George is confident Korman Communities will see significant results with significant operational impact.