Konica Minolta evolves digital strategy with Office 365 support from DXC

Leading with a digital shinka

Konica Minolta, with about $9.5 billion (1.0313 trillion Japanese yen) in revenue in 2018, provides services in 150 countries in office services, commercial industrial printing, healthcare, optical systems for industrial use and functional materials.

Becoming a digital enterprise is a top priority for Konica Minolta, so the manufacturer of business and industrial imaging products has made it a priority to strengthen its communication environment with a global Office 365, support service for tens of thousands of employees in Japan, other parts of Asia, North America and Latin America around the clock.

Konica Minolta reached out to DXC Technology for DXC Services for Office 365, which provides enhanced 24x7 global support in both English and Japanese languages and delivers reliable and rapid incident response, preventive maintenance and stable Office 365 service provisioning. Konica Minolta’s global communication infrastructure is now supported by DXC experts with considerable experience in technical support.

Konica Minolta’s medium-term business plan, “SHINKA 2019” — named for the Japanese word for “evolution” — expressly denotes the company’s strong intention to transform into a digital company. Konica Minolta wants to better predict potential challenges and issues for customers and also create solutions with them to contribute to the evolution of business and human society. Besides offering office systems, its business technology unit has launched a cloud service solution called Workplace Hub to support the various ways of working among customer companies, which has been expanded globally.

“To realize this innovative platform business, we have actively enhanced relationships with global IT companies,” says Atsushi Yamada, Senior Coordinator of IT Security Department, Corporate IT Planning Division of Konica Minolta. “Along with the global trend of digital transformation, Konica Minolta is committed to taking on challenges with the keyword of shinka. Workplace Hub is one of our approaches — representing the commitment of Konica Minolta.”

Reliable service and support through outsourcing

When Konica Minolta decided to employ Office 365, that meant migrating the email communication infrastructure for 23,000 internal users in eight countries from an Exchange environment to Exchange Online. This was a successful enhancement of the communication environment in connection with the company’s commitment to “enhance productivity by leveraging IT,” as proposed in SHINKA 2019.

As the email infrastructure migration neared completion, “we started to work on the next theme,” Yamada says. “This was the selection of a partner that provides reliable mail services using Exchange Online and supports system development and operations for efficient incident response and service desk operations.”

Exchange Online is used by about 23,000 persons in Japan and countries in the AsiaPacific, North America and Latin America regions, according to Konica Minolta. To select a partner to support operation of its new global communication infrastructure, Office 365 Exchange Online, Konica Minolta set the following requirements:

• Global service desk: 24x7 availability for 23,000 users in eight countries in English and Japanese.

• Rapid incident response: Capabilities to resolve problems in a black box environment specific to public cloud.

• Cost savings: Superior cost efficiency versus legacy operations, plus operational flexibility and scalability of services.

• Service launch in a short time frame: Development in 1 month from operation preparation to commencement of services.

The migration project was led by Konica Minolta Information System, a Konica Minolta subsidiary that contributes extensively to the optimization of Konica Minolta IT environments, including engaging in the design, architecture and operation of backbone systems and research and development systems.

“In selecting a partner, we placed particular importance on three factors: the capability to provide consistent technical support to Konica Minolta’s global sites; a proven record in Office 365 support on a global scale; abundant experience and expertise; and the capability to reasonably reduce costs,” says Go Kawakami, Manager of IT Infrastructure Technologies 1, System Development and Infrastructure Service Division of the company.

Problem solving with DXC Service for Office 365

In response to the requirements, DXC proposed DXC Services for Office 365, which serves over 4 million global users and offers:

• 24x7 multilingual support by DXC global delivery centers.

• Problem solving with a shorter response time than Microsoft’s standard SLA and close cooperation with Microsoft when dealing with any severe fault.

• Simple and reasonable fee system based on number of active users and selected services.

DXC is already providing Office 365 operation services to dozens of global enterprises in Japan. Customers using the services have achieved significant results, such as improved user service quality and optimal placement of internal IT resources.

Close cooperation with Microsoft

“DXC Services for Office 365 satisfies all our requirements, including large, global scale and rapid problem solving, cost reduction and quick introduction,” Kawakami says. “Office 365 is frequently updated, and we have a number of inquiries and incidents at the time of each update. The rich experiences of DXC and its close relationship with Microsoft have provided us with a sense of security.”

DXC has accumulated an extensive range of knowledge in Office 365 operations, and the incident resolution rate at DXC global delivery centers is 98 percent. For critical incidents, the standard service level includes a “starting response within 15 minutes” and “hourly reporting,” among others. Furthermore, DXC has established a strong alliance with Microsoft for Office 365 operations and has co-located personnel at Microsoft for resolution in the event of any unprecedented fault.

“They stick to problem solving and do not let the causes remain uncertain. This is one of the great benefits of using DXC Services for Office 365,” says Yamada.

Simple and reasonable price structure

An important requirement for Konica Minolta was to reduce operational costs. The DXC service does not incur any unexpected costs, according to Yamada. “While other operations services often charge fees depending on the number of inquiries and fault incidents, DXC proposed a simple per-user price,” says Yamada. “On our side, it is a big advantage to have a fixed upper limit on operational costs, but at the same time it sets an upper limit on DXC revenue. This provides incentive for DXC to improve operational quality and reduce the need for user support.”

One of DXC Services for Office 365’s main features is a proactive operation service that aims to reduce incidents. DXC offers optional menus for a wide range of Office 365 extension services — giving organizations another reason to favor DXC services.

Delivering value in just over a month

Operation of the DXC Services for Office 365 began as planned. DXC completed the introduction project in a short period of time using standard templates based on its past records and experiences.

“When we selected DXC, there was only a month before the planned launch of the new operational system,” says Kawakami. “I think we would not have accomplished this if the project had been done through ordinary handover procedures. However, based only on our answers to survey sheets, the design documents and several meetings, DXC comprehended the large-scale and complex requirements and built an entire system, including a global delivery team. We really appreciate DXC’s handling of the project.”

For Office 365 operations, DXC provides a 24x7 service desk available in English and Japanese, proactive monitoring, ITIL-compliant incident management, problem management, change management, capacity management, service level management and more through technical support from the global delivery center. DXC also conducts trend analyses from incident data to streamline its operations and solve problems. These operations are based on DXC’s proven record of providing services to other enterprises and its strong partnership with Microsoft.

Kawakami says he has a high regard for these operations. “The number of inquiries from users sharply increased right after migration, but that number kept declining, and now it is steady at around 100 per month. This means smooth response procedures have been well established during 1 year of practical operation. It is also advantageous in that we can proactively deal with potentially critical issues based on global incident data provided by DXC.”

Konica Minolta is expanding its use of Office 365 functions such as SharePoint and Teams. DXC Services for Office 365 supports all services of Office 365.

Says Yamada: “Ordinary operational services simply take over the operations we would otherwise carry out, whereas DXC aims to improve operational procedures, proactively reduce the probability of issues and continuously improve the quality of IT services. Naturally, the benefits we receive from DXC’s services are greater. We look forward to receiving continuous support from DXC as we expand the internal scope of Office 365 service applications in the future.”