Content Archiving, Endpoint Security, Messaging Security

Executive Summary

Overview
BDO Israel is a dynamic and performance-driven accounting and consulting firm. It is part of the BDO international network that reaches more than 110 countries. Ranked among the five leading industry firms in Israel, BDO Israel provides audit and accounting, tax, and business consulting services to industry and government. Established in 1983, the firm currently employs approximately 1,050 people spanning six branches in Israel, satellite offices in India and China, and an accounting office in the country of Georgia.

Barriers
The nature of BDO Israel’s business requires the highest level of security in its fixed and mobile environments, faultless business continuity, and efficient document storage and retrieval—all of which it achieved with information technology (IT) upgrades. Because of its lean IT operation, the firm needed to migrate from high-touch legacy systems to a single automated system that was unfailingly reliable. The system also had to drive down server space requirements to manage a mounting cache of structured documents and to contend with email usage that was growing by 20 percent annually. The company had about 25 terabytes of capacity across 75 servers, but free space was disappearing rapidly. BDO Israel recognized that highly efficient IT management was needed to avoid having to purchase new servers year after year.

The Solution
In 2006, BDO Israel began a four-year migration to an integrated suite of Symantec solutions that included Symantec Enterprise Vault as well as to several endpoint and security solutions, including Symantec Endpoint Protection, Symantec Brightmail Gateway appliances, and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery. In 2010, it brought all of those endpoint and security solutions under the umbrella of Symantec Protection Suite Enterprise Edition.

BDO Israel also contracted with Symantec Consulting Services to assist with initial architecture design. Symantec Partners Virgonet Israel and GlassHouse Technologies provided implementation and integration support for Symantec Enterprise Vault. BDO Israel manages the IT infrastructure with a lean staff of outsourced employees who work under the direction of Chief Information Officer (CIO) Itzik Ben-Ezri.

Benefits
Alchemy Group conducted a Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI™) analysis of BDO Israel, and concluded that the company realized tangible business value using Symantec solutions. Actual and projected savings totaled nearly $1.12 million for the period from August 2006 through December 2012.
This TOEI™ was jointly developed by BDO Israel’s CIO and Alchemy Group. To ensure the integrity of this analysis, the assumptions and formulas were audited by an independent finance and accounting firm.

For more information or to download this document, go to  http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/