Fido Chooses Identical MS Project Look and Feel

Fido Telecom has carved out a distinctive niche in the Canadian wireless industry. It is a company that is very proud of the contributions they’ve made to the evolution of wireless telecommunications and fast mobile data connectivity—tools that were once beyond the reach of most Canadians and that are now an increasingly integral part of everyday life.

With innovative products, service offerings, and airtime packages Fido has changed the face of wireless telecommunications in Canada and helped to change the way they communicate. Today, they are the Personal Communications System (PCS) provider of choice for well over a million Canadians.

Business Challenge

As a multi-faceted organization, Fido understands how crucial it is for teams and key stakeholders in any project to be able to collaborate in an open and equal environment. If even one person is operating in this type of environment with incomplete or inaccurate information, the entire organization is at risk. A key tool that Fido has relied on very heavily has been the industry standard in project management, Microsoft Project®.

While the use of the Microsoft Project has been a key driver of the company’s operational success, management has long been aware that for many key stakeholders in the internal communication chain it was more tool than they would ever need. Quite simply, aside from key Project ‘super-users’, most ‘ everyday users simply needed the ability to view, analyze and print project files.

Being able to deploy a lightweight Project ‘viewer’ software application had great appeal to Fido, but only if it did not compromise the user community’s need for a robust, highly functional, and flexible software tool. And most importantly, with a workforce deeply ingrained in the process flow of Microsoft Project’s overall look and feel, any Project Viewer software product they purchased had to possess the same intuitive look, feel, and navigation as MS Project.

Seavus Project Viewer Solution

In an effort to reduce its Information Technology costs, Fido evaluated a number of Microsoft Project Viewers, and the depth and thoroughness of the process they used mirrored the importance that they place on their Microsoft Project installation.

Carefully weighing the overall cost against the benefits that each solution under review possessed, Fido selected the Seavus Project Viewer and easily deployed it to all of its users. “Since most of our users are so familiar with Microsoft Project, we wanted a project viewer that looked and worked as close as possible to Microsoft Project but at a fraction of the cost” states Jean-François Sauvé, Fido’s Manager of Software and Head of the company’s search efforts. He adds that “From our point of view the Seavus Project viewer was the one that could answer the needs we had”.

Business Benefits

Fido’s workforce was quickly able to begin using the Seavus Project Viewer once it was installed. The product’s high quality, Microsoft-centric look and feel so closely mirrors the fully enabled Microsoft Project that any sort of using training was unnecessary. Jean François offers that “It really is very similar to MS Project and all of the features of the product are useful to the user”.

The Seavus Project Viewer is now being used by 100 users at Fido, providing an impressive financial Return on Investment, and one that has had a positive impact on their user community. Jean François closes by saying that “Perhaps most importantly it has helped us to reduce our software costs without compromising on quality or performance.” Who can argue with that?

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