Accenture: Migrating from Lotus Notes to Microsoft

Lotus Notes to Microsoft migration brings collaboration, cost savings and efficiency.

To reduce costs and improve collaboration across its growing global organization, Accenture decided to transition from Lotus Notes to the Microsoft platform. Teaming with Avanade and Microsoft, Accenture was able to perform this massive transition successfully, reducing costs by 35 percent—enabling the company to run like a high-performance business and better equipping it to help its clients themselves achieve high performance.

Accenture adopted Lotus Notes ("Notes") in 1991—at that time, the only platform that allowed knowledge sharing on a global scale. Over time, Accenture developed a series of sophisticated Notes-based applications that supported every activity, from performance management to finance. The company also became a major user of Notes-based e-mail.

By 2002, Accenture wanted a better solution—one that would be less costly and allow for increased collaboration.

High performers are not held hostage by their legacy systems, according to Accenture research on how IT can enable high performance business. If companies are serious about transforming their enterprises, they must break away from their legacy roots and leverage new, cheaper IT to raise the bar on IT performance, according to a 2008 Accenture survey of 260 chief information officers.

To sustain a high level of performance, Accenture chose to migrate to the Microsoft platform. The Microsoft mail platform provided better integration and functionality, Microsoft technologies also were consistent with Accenture’s internal IT organization and skills, and Accenture’s analysis showed the Microsoft platform would provide the organization with lower operating costs. Importantly, Accenture also felt that Microsoft had a better vision for integrating across its product suite such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Office Communications Server.

Once the decision was made to migrate, Accenture moved swiftly, working with alliance partners Avanade and Microsoft to design, test, build and deploy the solution.

Transitioning to the Microsoft platform involved changing two fundamental elements—e-mail and Notes-based applications. Accenture planned a staged migration that spanned three years, beginning with the modification of mail-dependent applications in 2003. This cleared the way for step two, the rapid migration of nearly 80,000 e-mail users in 48 countries.

At the height of the migration, up to 1,000 e-mail users were transferred per day. Given Accenture employees' long experience with Notes, the move to a new platform required a major change management effort.

Accenture approached the completion of the final phase in 2006—the transition of business applications from Lotus Notes to the Microsoft platform—having remedied, replaced or retired applications in which Notes served as the fundamental architecture. To minimize costs even further, Accenture leveraged its lower-cost offshore delivery capability in India and the Philippines to remediate many of the remaining databases and applications.

Accenture's Lotus Notes to Microsoft transition has been one of the largest, fastest and most successful migrations to date. The implemented changes and those nearly completed strengthen and better integrate Accenture's IT capabilities, enabling individuals to be more productive and helping enable Accenture to run as a high-performance business. They also reduce Accenture's long-term operating costs, allowing the company to operate more effectively.

Transitioning from Lotus Notes to Microsoft products and technologies lowered annual operating costs since 2002 by 35 percent. Beyond the financial gains, Accenture also achieved its strategic goals. The migration improved Accenture's performance while ensuring it could better collaborate internally as well as externally with alliance partners and suppliers and help clients to achieve high performance.

Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft packaged the approach, assets and experience gained from this engagement, as well as others, into a solution for clients that facilitates mail migrations from Notes to Exchange and Outlook and addresses the challenges of moving from the Notes application environment to the Microsoft platform. Accenture Chief Information Officer Frank Modruson, agrees, "We can now use these tools, in conjunction with the processes for managing ongoing operations and hosting, to help our clients drive economies and improve their business performance."