HeartKids, an Australian non-profit organisation that supports families who have a child with a heart disease, has just deployed Microsoft Office 365. This is HeartKids' first phase to improve its aging and disparate IT system. Prior to adopting Office 365, HeartKids approached several IT vendors to help overcome the challenges of managing and expanding its dilapidated IT infrastructure. HeartKids selected Office 365 as it provided its six offices and mobile workforce with:

• a standard collaboration environment rather than ad hoc methods
• a unified method of communication via the integrated Exchange email and Lync systems
• a method to view and access all data no matter where in the country the mobile force had to be deployed to.

Being a non-profit organisation, affordability was also a key consideration.

"As a charity, we've got to be responsible and accountable with the money that donors give us," HeartKids CEO, Jann Kingston, said. "We always want to ensure that maximum funds go towards our charitable work and that any necessary costs are kept to a minimum. At the same time, we have to balance this by taking a considered view of our environment, the way in which we work and the best tools for our employees to help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently."

The deployment of Office 365 is predicted to grant a 20 per cent saving on the organisation's annual budget.

Read more about Office 365 in the non-profit sector.