Your complete office in the cloud. Weaving a new era of collaboration at Ascent Yarns with Office 365

In the apparels business, labels are the most identifiable way in which consumers make buying decisions. And having consistent quality in woven labels across 1,000s of garments is paramount to manufacturers across the globe. Three entrepreneurs from Ahmedabad thought the same and got into the business of manufacturing specialized yarn for woven labels. Based in Gujrat, Ascent Yarns, a subsidiary of Global Pacific Nominees, Australia, provides yarns to important brands like H&M, Zara, Nike, Levis, Next, Target, GAP and many more. Over the years, Ascent Yarns has expanded its export business across Asia Pacific by adding offices in Sri Lanka, helping it to grow its distribution network. A small business, Ascent works with 16 employees who manage the business and over 200 employees who work in the factory. The three managers responsible for business are based in Melbourne and travel extensively to manufacturing locations. And because of their constant travel, decision making and time management was becoming an acute problem in ensuring things got done on time. Access to information was the key hindrance. With key decision makers traveling internationally, we needed to have a full background on each purchase order or payment. The time difference meant that simple decisions could take up to 23 days. Ashvini Shekhar, Director, Ascent Yarns On any day, the team expects to take about 20-25 decisions between them, so having updated and relevant information was critical at Ascent. They started looking for a solution that would provide a consistent and efficient way to manage, monitor and approve decisions without adding significant costs. Ascent met with Bitscape Infotech, a Microsoft Gold Competency Partner to explore a solution was quick to deploy and cost effective. Bitscape suggested the company move on to Microsoft Office 365 with SharePoint Online as a key solution for collaboration across the organization. We chose SharePoint Online to minimize decision making time while still providing the latest communications and collaboration capabilities. Their licensing model and monthly payment option made Office 365 the ideal choice. Anup Khushu, Director, Ascent Yarns Within 10 days all process flows and workflows related to the approval hierarchy system were on SharePoint Online. With SkyDrive Pro, the team could allow users to share files and documents in a central location and access the information from virtually anywhere. Now rather than physically carrying documents, employees could simply scan and upload documents to access it at any given time. Decisions were made faster as the team could quickly decide on things, based on historical facts available, which wasnt possible earlier. With pay-as-you-go licensing, additional user licenses were purchased against a fixed price every month as and when required rather than having to make bulk investments. And automated processes reduced time consuming, unnecessary communications resulting in efficient and effective management targeted at growth. Today, Ascent Yarns is planning how it can bring its external partners, suppliers and customers on board to give more visibility to its stakeholders. And looking to weave in the next chapter of its growth story with Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 is the lifeline of our business. Anup Khushu, Director, Ascent Yarns Read in detail about Ascent Yarns story Here 1800-11-1100 1800-102-1100 (Toll Free) or 080-40103000 (Toll Paid) To know more Call us at Or Mail or have a quick chat Hours of Operation 0900-1800hrs IST Catch us on our social channels for a quick word Or Log on to the Office 365 page and do more 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.