Napier PR.

MD Mike Maynard is a self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology. He began his career as an electronics design engineer, helping to develop a wide range of products from complex radar systems to Kim Wilde’s mixing desk. Mike later joined IDT Inc, an American semiconductor company, rising to become European Marketing Manager, before acquiring Napier with Director Suzy Kenyon in 2001. Mike has directed major PR and marketing programmes for a wide range of technology clients and is, therefore, well-placed to talk about the software needs of a company that has to be agile and collaborative in a very fast-paced and geographically diverse business.

Mike chose Office 365 as much for its remote working functionality and cost-benefits as for the familiarity and reliability of trusted productivity tools, but the clincher was the improvement to his email management. Napier had used Microsoft Exchange for many years without too many issues, but without an in-house IT team it was time-consuming to maintain and to back-up and when the time came to replace the Exchange server, Mike inevitably looked for a cloud solution. Office 365 not only gave Mike and virtually anywhere access to the Microsoft Office tools they knew and relied on, but also reduced the costs and resources of managing their email system – a key objective.

"The main advantage is that it just works".

It was also extremely simple to deploy and Mike is happy to admit that he didn’t even need give his staff specific instructions how to install the system; he just let them get on with. No one had any issues or even asked any questions – it all worked smoothly and ‘exactly as you’d expect’ – which is rare and high praise indeed. Like most modern organisations Napier’s staff members use a mixture of every kind of device available from tablets and smart phones to desktop PCs and laptops and everyone can access their email and company documents efficiently and easily, no matter where they are. “We have virtually no connectivity issues now”, explains Mike, “Something that was a real problem before when we ran our own server.”

As a professional communicator Mike puts it beautifully succinctly: “The main advantage”, he says, “is that it just works”. And for us that’s the best endorsement you can have for a piece of technology and the perfect definition of worry free computing.