Case Study: Practical Action achieves reliable global email and collaboration with Phoenix Software and Office 365

Practical Action is an international development charity which uses sustainable technology to help poor women and men around the world to support themselves out of poverty

Practical Action, an international development charity working across countries including Bangladesh, Kenya, Peru, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Sudan, struggled with deeply unreliable email communication between its offices. With local servers running in difficult conditions such as unstable power, civil unrest and trade embargoes, central management was not practical. Phoenix Software was brought in to help with a more reliable global email platform using Office 365.

Phoenix Software implemented a global Office 365 deployment, replacing the regional offices’ individual Exchange servers with hosted cloud email and web-based Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Lync. The rollout was completed over three weeks with staged weekend migrations to minimise disruption, and Practical Action gained near 100% uptime, better performance, improved mobility and reduced on-site IT support needs.

Practical Action

Alex Haywood

International IT Infrastructure Specialist