MEDIAAGILITY RUNS ON THE CLOUD FOR LESS THAN $1/EMPLOYEE/DAY

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1 Powered By Our Rich Culture and the Cloud MEDIAAGILITY RUNS ON THE CLOUD FOR LESS THAN $1/EMPLOYEE/DAY How MediaAgility Achieved Process and Culture Transformation. AUTHORS Rajesh Abhyankar, Co-Founder and CEO Vidushi Bhatia, Manager - Enterprise Marketing version 1.1 GA - May 2013 HQ: 360 Wall Street, Princeton NJ (866) MEDIA V1 sales@mediaagility.com

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary! 3 MediaAgility Culture! 4 Born in the Cloud! 4 Rich Culture! 4 Google Partnership! 4 Employee Productivity! 5 Phased Approach! 5 Google Apps - Messaging and Collaboration! 5 Google+ Enterprise Social Media! 5 Sales, Service and Marketing! 6 Nimble - CRM! 6 Hubspot - Inbound Marketing! 6 Mojo Helpdesk - Support! 6 Communications! 7 RingCentral - Cloud PBX! 7 Uber Conference - Audio Conferencing! 7 People Operations! 7 1

3 7Geese - Social Performance Management! 7 Accounting and Finance! 8 Xero - Beautiful Accounting Software! 8 Expensify - Expense Management! 8 Software Development! 9 Pivotal Tracker - Agile Product Development! 9 Teamwork PM - Project Management! 9 Wunderlist - Personal To Do Lists! 9 Architecture! 10 Google Apps Identity! 10 Economics! 11 Cost per Business Function! 11 Process and Culture Transformation! 12 Not Just Technology Savings! 12 Work the Way You Live! 12 Global Community Spirit! 12 Collaborative Creation of Intellectual Property! 12 Conclusions! 13 2

4 Executive Summary 1. Overview - MediaAgility is a Cloud Intelligence company headquartered in the US with offices in India, Singapore and the UK. Founded in early 2011, our mission is to challenge our customers to achieve their moonshots by creating intelligent solutions powered by our rich culture and the cloud. We achieve this through our three business divisions - Products, Cloud Deployments and Enterprise Solutions. With a global strength of 130 as of May 2013 and growing, our goal during our inception was to showcase ourselves as a model example of a modern lean enterprise that runs entirely on the cloud. Through this white paper we are sharing for the first time how we achieved this over a period of one year. 2. Technology Transformation - We created a team of change agents that challenged every single business process and migrated it to the cloud. This required tremendous effort in evaluating numerous cloud solutions, doing pilot runs, selecting a solution and sometimes changing it within few months if required. Most important were user training and change management. After a year of stable operations we are now optimizing our costs at an incredible level of less than $1 per employee per month. 3. Process and Culture Transformation - Through this initiative we have been able to deploy some of the latest thinking in the fields of collaboration, employee engagement, going asset-light and creating an open culture where innovation can thrive. This has resulted in not just technology savings but a more profound process and culture transformation. 4. Purpose - The objective of this white paper is to help business and technology leaders at small, medium and even large businesses to understand the growing trend of Consumerization of IT and how this can actually bring about a cultural transformation in their organizations. 3

5 MediaAgility Culture Born in the Cloud MediaAgility was born in the Cloud in early 2011 with a mission to challenge our customers to achieve their moonshots by creating intelligent solutions powered by our rich culture and the Cloud. Founded in New York by a group of high performance entrepreneurs, the company had a clear vision of the impact of the massive paradigm shift taking place in computing. By the end of this decade almost the entire global population will be connected to the Internet through various devices. Cloud computing will continue to rise with its massive processing power and virtually unlimited storage and people will find many interesting ways to connect with each other. This is an exciting time to be part of this new paradigm to solve some of the big problems that seemed impossible to solve only a few years ago. We have helped over a 100 customers to migrate to this new paradigm, delivered numerous mobile apps that have been downloaded over 100,000 times and are building large scale solutions on the cloud platform for Fortune 500 companies. Rich Culture MediaAgility s culture is based on our shared values of Integrity, Persistence, Passion, Accountability, Enterprising spirit and Goal oriented approach. Every Agilite (every Agile Mind in the MediaAgility team) in the company shares these values as we continue to grow globally. We have challenged and re-imagined every single business process like accounting, HR, product development, facilities management and training. What started as cloud based technology transformation has resulted in a much deeper process and culture transformation. This has also created an abundance of opportunities to build amazing careers in a fun and exciting environment. For example travel around the world to work on challenging assignments, meet icons like Vint Cerf - the Father of the Internet or just relax at a Los Angeles beach after a hard days work. Joining MediaAgility has been described by many as a culture shock! TGIF celebration every Friday Opportunity to meet the Father of the Internet Santa Monica Pier after a hard days work Google Partnership Since our inception it was clear that we had to establish deep partnerships with innovative companies leading the world into this new paradigm of computing. Google Enterprise was a perfect match for us given our mission, culture and desire to work with the best minds in the industry. This white paper describes some of the critical business processes that have been challenged and transformed. The messaging and collaboration process that enables employee productivity is the lifeline of any business. We started with this area and adopted a phased approach as we had to work on three streams - Project Management, Change Management and Technology Implementation. 4

6 Employee Productivity Phased Approach A small team was put together to implement our CEO s vision of showcasing MediaAgility as a model company to run entirely on the cloud. There was no budget or approval for hosting ANY servers on-premise in any country. The team began rolling out this vision in phases. The first stop was addressing the , messaging and collaboration needs that affect the entire company. Later phases continued to roll out cloud solutions that would cover all the departments. This white paper only provides an overview and detailed comparisons, pilots, selection process of individual cloud solutions is outside the scope of this document. Google Apps - Messaging and Collaboration The founders of MediaAgility were early adopters of Google Apps (in their previous venture) ever since the product launched as Gmail for Your Domain. Google Apps provides a strong foundation that connects employees and most importantly provides a secure identity with two-factor authentication for each Agilite. The Google Apps Marketplace has evolved into a rich ecosystem of third-party software engineered to work seamlessly with Google Apps. Google Apps services contributes immensely across all functions in the organization. Eg. Google Sites became our Intranet and training platform. Google Drive hosts our shared document repository. Google+ Hangout Google Drive Gmail Google+ Enterprise Social Media Google+ is an innovative social-enterprise tool that is part of Google Apps. Google+ Hangouts serve as a powerful video conferencing feature enabling Agilites to collaborate from multiple locations at the same time. Users can join a Hangout from various devices running Android, ios, Mac or Windows. The social aspects of Google+ enables our marketing team to create and energize communities, educate audience, share blog posts, press releases and company updates publicly or share confidential company updates restricted to the users within the company domain. Our Sales and Services teams also stays in touch with clients and prospects via Google+. Google+ Circles are created by many teams. A new person joining the team gets added to the circle and benefits from wealth of training material and information about their project from the conversations in that circle. 5

7 Sales, Service and Marketing Nimble - CRM We understood the need for a cloud based CRM very early and after testing out a couple of available tools, we settled on Nimble. We liked Nimble s approach of Social Relationship Management where our sales reps can see all the publicly available social information about their contacts. The unified communications approach, social listening and the expanding apps marketplace made us choose this over many other CRM solutions. We had initially started with our own deployment of the open source Sugar CRM, followed by one other cloud solution, finally settling in for Nimble. With Google Apps integration, the sales team is now able to launch this tool directly from the GMail interface. Hubspot - Inbound Marketing Hubspot has emerged as a clear leader in the field of Inbound Marketing. We wanted the best for our marketing team so after a trial decided to roll out this platform with deep integration with our website, blog, landing pages and Nimble CRM. With thought leadership at our core we knew we will be producing a lot of content in terms of blog posts, videos, ebooks and white papers like this one. Being able to effectively market this content to generate inbound leads was a challenge till we found this solution. Mojo Helpdesk - Support Our requirement was to provide an online helpdesk facility for our customers to get support using a ticket based system. After evaluating numerous cloud based services and an attempt to run open source osticket on our own, we decided to implement Mojo Helpdesk. BrandAgility - Social Media Listening We identified the need of brand monitoring and devised an indigenous way of implementing it. We developed a very powerful brand monitoring tool that integrates the power of Crowd Sourcing with Cloud Computing. BrandAgility, nested within Google Apps, continuously monitors the Internet for discussions about us, our competitors and the industry and aggregates it on a single dashboard. Our employees engage internally and on the web over these posts while staying right within the brand monitoring system. This new age TV style interface is compliant with Tablets, Google TV and Touch screens for easy viewing and engagement. This tool can be used not just for brand monitoring but also for lead generation, product ideation, compliance and employee engagement. 6

8 Communications RingCentral - Cloud PBX True to our cloud policy, even our global Toll Free number and the PBX is hosted on the cloud. RingCentral is a cloud based business phone system that requires no hardware or installations. Calls can be routed to your desk extension, cellphone or laptop sequentially or simultaneously. Features like auto-receptionist, call handling rules, voic s and do-not-disturb makes this a much better solution than the traditional on-premise PBX. If in the US try calling us at (866) MEDIA-V1. Uber Conference - Audio Conferencing In line with selecting the best tools for our business, the visual dimension to audio conference calls attracted us. During a conference call users can see names, photos and other available information in their browser. Features like recording calls, mute participants, or put the creative ear muffs on people you do not want to hear parts of the conversation makes this solution a clear winner. This solution integrates with Google Apps and employees can launch conference calls on demands for free. People Operations 7Geese - Social Performance Management As is imperative for businesses to have a centralized and transparent performance management system, we implemented a cloud based application called 7Geese integrated with Google Apps. Our employees can now set quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and check-in their progress periodically. The goals may be individual or a team contribution and the check-ins give a fair view of the progress made on the set goals. Recognizing a colleague for their achievements creates a great sense of community. The private feedback system also serves as the backbone for our HR appraisal process. 7

9 Accounting and Finance Xero - Beautiful Accounting Software After a lot of comparison between desktop software on-premise, hosted desktop software and cloud solutions we selected Xero. With its Google Apps integration it provides secure access to the small group of accounting and sales team. We have implemented a workflow where the sales team is able to enter invoices and the accounting team approves and sends them to the clients. With direct access to Bank Accounts the overhead to reconcile transactions is minimal. Features like multi-currency support enables our Finance team to manage invoices in all our countries of operations. The software also enables our team to create invoices, clear them for payments, schedule periodical payments to vendors and also track credits and returns online. Rich reporting features and access from tablets and smartphones makes this a truly beautiful accounting software. Expensify - Expense Management This was not planned for but we came across this innovative product on the Google Apps Marketplace and decided to implement it. With no fixed monthly charges and payment only for submitters of expense reports per month it was easy to fit this into the target budget. This app is most useful on smartphones where one can keep track of expenses and also use the smart-scan system to take a picture of receipts. By the end of the business trip the expense report is ready for review and submission. Expensify guarantees electronic receipts for expenses up to a certain amount thus eliminating the need for paper or photo based receipts. The innovative feature based on Google Maps makes it easier to record expenses for mileage using personal vehicle. We have created policies for Expensify in each country of our operation and the system highlights violations to the user. This makes the entire expense management process painless. 8

10 Software Development Pivotal Tracker - Agile Product Development Our software development methodology is captured in our proprietary Moonshot Process Framework. This framework allows tailoring of our software process based on client needs ranging from a complete Agile to a more traditional Unified model. Pivotal Tracker is an agile project management and collaboration tool used by our software developers when adopting an Agile methodology for development. Many of our customers adopted this product after they were introduced to it through our teams. This is essentially a single page application with Current, Backlog and Ice Box column views of the agile stories. Getting the global teams and the client teams literally on the same page helps product development to become truly agile. Teamwork PM - Project Management For those teams outside of product development and where clients require a more traditional approach we decided to adopt TeamworkPM project management tool. We use this extensively for time tracking, setting up milestones, task allocations, task specific file management, calendar sharing and more. TeamworkPM allows each member and stakeholder to individually track their respective projects from a single dashboard. Integration with Google Drive provides access to key project documents. Risk Management features let project managers record the project risks and mitigation plans. Wunderlist - Personal To Do Lists After trying a dozen of To Do applications we settled on Wunderlist as an optional free service for those who wish to use it. It is beautifully designed and available on all platforms. Data sync across all devices is seamless. The way this product is delivered across devices in a beautiful packaging is an inspiration to our product development teams. 9

11 Architecture Google Apps Identity The heart of our architecture is the Identity management provided by Google Apps. With two-factor authentication enabled, it is a very secure mechanism to access all the cloud based services. The Google Apps Marketplace has enabled third party solution providers to integrate their applications with this Google Apps identity. We made careful selection of our solutions with preference given to those that make use of this tight integration. Some products like TeamworkPM do not support Google Apps Single Sign On yet (they do have basic support for OpenID). We have to manage user accounts on these systems manually. Our MediaAgility lab is always busy testing latest developments in cloud, mobile and social like the Google Glass. HR 7Geese google drive service mojo-helpdesk google drive Accounts Expensify Xero Sales NIMBLE CRM google drive MARKETING HUBSPOT Brandagility phone PROJECT MANAGEMENT pivotal tracker ringcentral uber conference PROJECT MANAGEMENT teamwork-pm Google Apps Single Sign On MURALLY asana lucid chart google cloudprint Apps Not Yet Supporting Google Apps SSO MediaAgility Labs Testing Latest Technology 10

12 Economics Cost per Business Function All prices are in USD and based on list price published on the respective websites of the cloud solution vendors as of May 1, Actual price paid by MediaAgility might be different, based on the plans available when we signed up and/or any discounts related to volume or business partnerships with these vendors. FUNCTION SOLUTION UNIT PRICE USERS MONTHLY Messaging and Collaboration Google Apps $50 /user/year 130 $541 Sales Nimble $15/user/month 10 $150 Marketing Hubspot $700/month. $2000 one time NA $866 Service MojoHelpdesk $50/month NA $50 Social Monitoring BrandAgility $99/month NA $99 Communications RingCentral $30/month ProPlus. $5/month per digital line. NA $45 Communications UberConference Free NA $0 Website, OpenLDAP, CVS Not published Not published NA $154 HR 7Geese $7/user/month 130 $910 Accounting Xero $39/month/company 3 companies $117 Accounting Expensify $5/submitter/month Avg 10 $50 Payroll US Intuit $29/month. $1.5/employee 10 $44 Payroll India Not published Not published 120 $43 Project Management TeamworkPM $99/month NA $99 Project Management Pivotal Tracker $100/month 25 $100 Total - $3,268/month Employees Per Employee - $25/employee/month. Less than $1/employee/day 11

13 Process and Culture Transformation Not Just Technology Savings Our goal for this initiative was not to just gain technology savings but achieve process and potentially culture transformation. This section provides an overview of such transformation through some examples. This should trigger the imagination of what can be achieved with a strong cloud based technology platform. Work the Way You Live Industrial age thinking of 9 to 5 working hours has made it very difficult to collaborate with other time zones that is a requisite for most global businesses. With our platform we have made it possible to break the 9 to 5 cycle such that work happens when it has to happen. Balancing work and life has never been easier. It is not uncommon for an Agilite to walk their dog in the morning and join a Google+ Hangout on their phone with colleagues winding their day in India. Product development teams are working from Florida, India and Thailand at hours that suit them the best. The game changer is the ability to use the same modern devices and services at work that you are used to in your personal lives. Global Community Spirit With tools like GTalk, 7Geese, Hangouts and Google+ for the company it has become very easy to forget who works from what time zone. Once we are on a Hangout within few minutes the time zones disappear and we are collaborating on a solution architecture or just enjoying some music with colleagues on the other side of the planet with a glass of beer on a friday evening. g India 2012 TGIF Global Musical Hangout Bonfire at the Annual Day Collaborative Creation of Intellectual Property This is possibly the biggest cultural change. When we start a new document the first question that comes to mind, even before we type the first word, is who can I share this with? Who are the best people in the company anywhere in the world that have expertise in this area that I can tap into. Eg. A solution architecture using Google BigQuery and App Engine on the front end can be put together within hours when all the experts share the same document and edit, comment or review whenever it is convenient for them. There are numerous other examples like our entire Intranet, Training System, Purchase Process, HR Database, Recruitment process, MIS Reports and Surveys that run on Google Apps. This platform just keeps on giving! 12

14 Conclusions MediaAgility is a new paradigm company and embarked on a journey to run all of their business operations entirely in the Cloud to showcase the power, security and affordability of the latest technology. It was a long and hard task of challenging every single process and re-imagining it on the Cloud. Today we are able to optimize the license and operational cost of running our IT systems to less than $1/employee/ day that is 1/3 of the price of a Latte. If we get creative by calculating the soft ROI like increased productivity, reduced travel costs, time saved in searching old mail archives and ability to work from anywhere on any device, we are sure the true cost of our innovative solution might be approaching $0! Beyond just a technology transformation, this has resulted in a total process and culture transformation for us. The first thing that comes to mind when we start a new document, even before typing a single letter is, who can I share this document with. Our extensive research in selecting the best of the cloud technology is now released through this white paper and we hope small and medium sized companies around the world benefit from our experience. Feel free to contact us with any help required in implementing your culture transformation project - your cloud moonshot. Enquiries about this white paper - Vidushi Bhatia Manager, Enterprise Marketing sales@mediaagility.com About MediaAgility: MediaAgility is a Google Enterprise Premier Partner with global reseller rights to provision and deploy Google Apps, Search, Geo and Cloud Platform at small, mid and large enterprises. Other services include providing New Paradigm solutions for cloud computing, cloud backed smartphone app development and leveraging the new app economy for their clients. With 100+ clients in over 9 countries and offices located in USA, India, UK and Singapore, all solutions are provisioned by industry experts. For more details, visit Disclaimer: Copyright of all logos and images used in this white paper belong to their respective owners and have been used from their publicly available websites only for illustration purpose. 13