Solution Case Study

Consulting Firm Achieves Nine Times ROI in First Year with Latest Diagramming Solution

OverviewPartner: IOZ AGPartner Website: www.ioz.chPartner Size: 30 employeesCountry or Region: SwitzerlandIndustry: IT services

Partner ProfileHeadquartered in Sursee, Switzerland, IOZ was founded in 2007. The company offers both technical and organizational management expertise to help customers optimize their business processes.

Software and Services Microsoft Office− Microsoft Visio 2013

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Technologies− Visio Services in SharePoint Server

“Visio has a huge impact on our business. Most of the customers who have seen our presentation on the IOZ Visio Process Template have bought it.”

Josua Müller, Founder, IOZ

IT firm IOZ uses Microsoft Visio in its business process diagramming tool to drive business: 40 percent of new business includes Visio and Visio Services components that generate an incremental 40 percent of consulting revenue per engagement. In the first year, IOZ reported a nine times return on its investment. IOZ uses the tool to create business process diagrams that customers store on SharePoint sites and revise through real-time collaboration.

Visio PartnerSolution Case Study

SituationA member of the Microsoft Partner Network, with Gold competencies in Collaboration and Content, IOZ specializes in deploying Microsoft SharePoint-based solutions for customers to optimize business workflows and business process management. “When we listen to our clients, it always comes down to organizational questions—how can we manage our business better—and SharePoint is a great framework to help with that,” says Josua Müller, Founder of IOZ.

During the early phase of an engagement, IOZ consultants clarify the business process for the customer. “First, we discuss a customer’s business and analyze their strategic processes to determine how we can optimize those processes to improve operational efficiencies within the business,” says Müller. “Before we uncovered the true potential of Visio, we used a cumbersome process that required several steps to complete and publish to a SharePoint site.”

IOZ wanted to develop a versatile and easily repeatable template-based solution to quickly create visually appealing business process optimization diagrams and to seamlessly publish them to customers’ SharePoint sites. Additionally, IOZ needed this to be a scalable solution that it could use with multiple customers. “It was very important to us to be able to duplicate our know-how for multiple customers in a single template and distribute it through a simple platform like SharePoint,” says Müller.

SolutionIOZ chose Microsoft Visio diagramming software to add value to its business process template product, and called its offering the IOZ Visio Process Template. IOZ is taking advantage of the interoperability between Visio and SharePoint technologies: consultants use Visio during the early phase of an engagement to clarify, visualize, and develop new business processes for each customer. Customers then add the template to a Microsoft SharePoint Server site to publish the diagram and to use it as a baseline for ongoing business process refinement.

“Visio made it easy for customers to visualize the benefits of the concepts behind our consultants’ business process management suggestions,” says Müller. “It is the ideal tool to help them see the value of our services.”

With Visio included in its business process template product, IOZ customers can publish and share diagrams by using Microsoft SharePoint Online (a component of Microsoft Office 365) and on-premises SharePoint servers. Customers can also use Visio Services, a SharePoint Server 2013 service application, in SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online, or Office 365 to view, comment on, and co-author Visio diagrams via most browsers and a variety of mobile devices, without having the Visio client installed. Customers can take advantage of Visio Services using a variety of devices including Windows and Android devices and iPads. For customers, this makes it easier than ever to share the IOZ Visio Process Template among employees.

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Josua MüllerFounderIOZ

These capabilities simplify how customers can update their IOZ Visio Process Templates through a seamless, collaborative experience.

BenefitsSince including Visio in the IOZ Visio Process Template, IOZ has increased the marketability of its product, improved customer satisfaction, and generated additional consulting revenue.

Improves Marketability“Visio has a huge impact on our business,” says Müller. “Most of the customers who have seen our presentation on the IOZ Visio Process Template have bought it.” The latest version, Microsoft Visio 2013, has many new features that resonated with IOZ customers.

“Customers love that it is cloud ready, it supports the latest diagramming standards, it offers seamless collaboration and publication to SharePoint sites, and they

can share diagrams through the browser on virtually any mobile device,” says Müller. “These features make our product more attractive. Today, more than 40 percent of customer engagements include a Visio and Visio Services component.”

Increases Return On InvestmentFor IOZ, Visio is responsible for a significant increase in revenue. IOZ consultants only required eight hours each to familiarize themselves with the latest version of Visio, and the engagements that include the IOZ Visio Process Template generate an average of 80 hours of billable time, per project. “In the first year, we achieved a nine times return on our investment in training, adjusted for inflation,” says Müller.

Increases Consulting RevenueFor IOZ, the key to driving ongoing consulting revenue is getting customers to think about refining their business processes. The easier it is for customers to use and collaborate on Visio diagrams, the more likely they are to come back to IOZ for additional work.

“Visio adds value to our product because customers can easily collaborate on their diagrams after they have been published on SharePoint,” says Müller. “This gets the dialogue going and soon they are coming to us, asking for help in process automation and to build additional SharePoint workflows. As each engagement with a Visio component has increased billable revenue by more than 40 percent, Visio has been great for our business!”

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Figure 1 – Using Visio diagramming software, IOZ adds value to its IOZ Process Template product, combining business process diagrams with related documentation on customers’ SharePoint sites.

VisioThe new Visio makes it easier than ever to create and share professional, versatile diagrams that simplify complex information. It includes updated shapes, templates, and styles, as well as enhanced support for teams, including the ability for several people to work on a single diagram at the same time.

For more information go to:Visio.microsoft.com

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For more information about IOZ products and services, call (41) 41 925 84 00 or visit the website at: www.ioz.ch

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2013