Baleno integrates collaborative capabilities into its business

IBM Case Study
Baleno integrates collaborative capabilities into its
business processes
Overview
 The Challenge
An unreliable, insecure messaging
and collaboration platform failed
to support business processes
adequately for this growing fashion
retailer
 Why IBM?
IBM offers a security-rich, reliable
and easy-to-manage messaging
and collaboration platform
 The Solution
A flexible infrastructure for e-mail,
With more than 5,000 outlets spread
instant messaging, document
across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
management and collaborative
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand,
business applications based on
IBM ® Lotus ® software
 The Benefits
•Security and reliability features of
the messaging platform reduce
administrative overhead
Indonesia and the Middle East, fashion
retailer Baleno Holdings can truly claim
to be “dressed for success.” Founded
in 1996 in Hong Kong, Baleno has
achieved rapid growth because of
• Integrated collaborative capabilities its ability to offer stylish clothing at
inform and accelerate business an affordable price. Today, Asian
processes, helping to increase pop-culture icons like Andy Lau line
organizational productivity
up to be spokespeople for the clothing company—a testament both to
the company’s appeal to youth and
to its glowing success. Faced with
breakaway growth, Baleno needed to
revamp its messaging and collaboration systems to support its employees
worldwide.
“The Lotus Domino
Document Manager lets
us share documents
throughout the
organization. Plus, it
helps us track changes to
documents so we avoid
duplicating work.”
— Horace Lee,
IT Manager,
Baleno Holdings
Among the many benefits Lotus Domino software provides are server-side spam
control, DNS blacklisting and other mail rules to help prevent spam and viruses.
Additionally, Baleno opted for Lotus Domino WebMail software to allow the company’s
2,000 Lotus users to access their e-mail via the Web. “A secure and reliable
communications platform is very important,” Lee explains. “In our fast-moving
business, we can’t afford the cost of lost opportunities due to missing e-mails.”
Baleno enjoys improved access to business-critical documents
Besides its messaging and collaboration applications, Baleno chose IBM Lotus
Domino Document Manager to structure its document library. Lotus Domino
Document Manager supports collaborative document creation and management
across groups of globally dispersed creators, contributors, reviewers and
approvers—helping to ensure accurate, up-to-date documents that are available
where and when they are needed. “The Lotus Domino Document Manager lets
us share documents throughout the organization,” Lee continues. “Plus, it helps us
track changes to documents so we avoid duplicating work.”
The retail fashion business is heavily dependent on the ability to collaborate
effectively on documents, and the Lotus Domino Document Manager helps Baleno
streamline operations across multiple departments throughout the company. “We
use Lotus Domino Document Manager to manage CAD files, word documents,
spreadsheets, photos, drawings, reports and many other mission-critical
documents,” Lee explains. “It provides a single repository for all of our documents,
and it gives our staff the ability to share information across the enterprise. All of
the documents are stored safely on one secure server, so unlike in the past, our
employees don’t have to waste time finding all project-related documents.”
“Lotus Workflow allows
us to define, create and
manage the execution
of work when we
develop new software.
It helps us automate our
actual work process,
which reduces the use
of paper, improves the
communication among
different departments
and increases efficiencies.”
— Horace Lee,
IT Manager,
Baleno Holdings
3
Baleno develops advanced workflow applications
Baleno used IBM Lotus Domino Designer® and IBM Lotus Workflow™ software to
develop security-rich workflow applications for access by the Lotus Notes client as
well as by browsers over the Web. Lotus Domino Designer and Lotus Workflow enable
Baleno to build applications that bring structure to collaborative business processes.
“Currently, we are developing an application that will help us streamline the workflow
around our lead-generation process,” Lee says. “Lotus Workflow allows us to define,
create and manage the execution of work when we develop new software. It helps us
automate our actual work process, which reduces the use of paper, improves the communication among different departments and increases efficiencies.”
When asked to elaborate on how automated workflow applications benefit business
operations, Lee points to the example of opening a new store. “A shop opening took
four weeks to complete using our previous manual processes for planning, designing,
renovating and transferring merchandise to the new store,” he claims. “Nowadays, the
workflow applications provide a structure for this procedure and better instructions for
every employee to carry out. This has shortened the time it takes us to open a shop from
four weeks to two weeks, which means we have more time for sales.”
Future development plans call for a business process portal
Besides standardizing on Lotus Notes and Domino for messaging and collaboration,
Baleno plans to implement a business process portal using IBM WebSphere® Portal
software. The Baleno portal will integrate company-wide business processes in a
single place. It will present Lotus Notes and Domino capabilities and applications
through an integrated set of portlets, enhancing and extended their value.
“The portal will integrate all of our business process functionality in one place. It
will give employees a unified interface to all of our different systems, with a single
sign-on,” Lee explains. “Employees will be able to access their e-mail and documents as well as business applications through the portal, and we will be able
to implement role-based distinctions so different employees will have access to
different resources based on their job functions and needs.” For example, some
employees will be able to access the enterprise resource planning and customer
relationship management systems through the portal, as befit their roles.
“Nowadays, the
workflow applications
provide a structure
for [the shop opening]
procedure and better
instructions for every
employee to carry out.
This has shortened the
time it takes us to open
a shop from four weeks
to two weeks, which
means we have more
time for sales.”
— Horace Lee,
IT Manager,
Baleno Holdings
4
Key Components
Baleno seeks enterprise-class messaging
For many years, Baleno used Microsoft® Outlook and Exchange for its e-mail and
Software
messaging activities. But the company found Exchange lacking in many respects.
• IBM Lotus Notes
“We had a lot of problems with Exchange,” explains Horace Lee, IT manager at
• IBM Lotus Domino
Baleno. “The Exchange server wasn’t running properly. People weren’t receiving
Enterprise Server
e-mails. Users were getting viruses. And there seemed to be a lot of spam.”
• IBM Lotus Domino
Document Manager
• IBM Lotus Workflow
• IBM Lotus Sametime®
• IBM Lotus Domino WebMail
• IBM Lotus Domino Designer
Servers
• IBM eServer™ iSeries™ 520 server
• IBM eServer xSeries® 346 server
In addition to the problems with its messaging infrastructure, Baleno needed more
advanced collaborative tools to support its business operations. As business
at Baleno continued to grow, the company required a reliable, high-performing
collaboration and messaging platform to support operations. “Our Exchange and
Outlook infrastructure just delivered e-mail without any collaborative applications,”
Lee explains. “We have more than ten offices spread across Asia, and we needed
the means to collaborate in ways beyond what e-mail alone can provide. Plus, in
our environment we needed six Exchange servers in different locations to serve our
users, which proved difficult and expensive to maintain.”
Baleno embarked on an evaluation process in which it compared newer versions of
Microsoft Exchange against products from IBM and others using a host of criteria,
including infrastructure and administration requirements, security, scalability and
reliability. In the end, a solution built around IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Domino™
Enterprise Server offered the security features, reliability and enterprise-class
messaging and collaboration capabilities Baleno required. “When we contacted
IBM, they did a number of demonstrations for us,” Lee explains. “Then they let us
test the software in our environment for a couple of months. We found the results very
impressive, so we decided to go with the IBM Lotus software.”
Baleno experiences more reliable collaboration
To revamp its collaboration and messaging functions, Baleno deployed a suite of IBM
Lotus products. It selected Lotus Notes and Domino for messaging, calendaring and
scheduling, and workflow applications.
2
Lotus Domino delivers efficiencies
The improved reliability and security features of its Lotus Notes and Domino
messaging and collaboration infrastructure have gained Baleno greater
efficiencies. Liberated from constantly responding to spam and viruses, the
technical staff at Baleno is free to focus on technical matters of strategic
importance. Having a collaboration platform that is easy to build and manage
has improved the productivity of the Baleno IT group by allowing it to focus on
technical development that improves business productivity instead of merely
reacting to IT nuisances. And the automated workflow applications have led to
streamlined processes that result directly in more sales.
For more information
For more information, contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or
visit: ibm.com/software/lotus
5
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2006
IBM Software Group
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Produced in the United States
June 2006
All Rights Reserved
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