MDIT reports cost savings through e-mail consolidation and standardization

Contact:  Kurt Weiss, (517) 335-0050
Agency: MI Dept. of Information Technology

January 30, 2007

Lansing - Managing the cost and expectations of e-mail service for state government is a responsibility that the Michigan Department of Information Technology (MDIT) positioned high on their priority list.  When Teri Takai accepted her position as MDIT Director and CIO for the State of Michigan, Michigan had more than 40 statewide e-mail systems with no standards in place.  Today, MDIT reports they have successfully consolidated all those e-mail systems, with standards in place to effectively manage and maintain the state's e-mail.

"I won't lie, it wasn't easy and there was pain in getting us to this point," said Takai.  "Change can be difficult, especially when you are asking employees already overloaded with work to learn a new system.   We took great care in working with each department to ensure that we understood their business needs and how they utilized e-mail in their daily work, and then focused on a strategy that supported those needs in a cost-saving consolidated environment."

Some of the highlights of the e-mail consolidation project include:

• Reducing over 40 statewide e-mail systems down to just two (GroupWise & Outlook)
• E-mail systems are now hosted in the state's premier hosting center with 24x7 support, rather than scattered in various buildings across the state 
• E-mail support staff has been reduced by half
• Hardware requirements have been decreased by nearly 90%.
• Projected savings of over $11 million over the next 4 years
• 50% increase in service levels and response time
• Enhanced security and resistance to virus attacks
• Reallocation of over $1.8 million in personnel costs

"We upgraded and standardized our servers and we focused on improving our protection from SPAM and virus attacks," added Patrick Hale, head of Infrastructure Services for MDIT and one of the project leaders.  "Now our field technicians know exactly what we are dealing with, making responses to outages and other problems much more fluid."

MDIT partnered with Microsoft, Novell and Dell to achieve the cost savings now realized through consolidation.  The e-mail consolidation effort has also led to increased redundancy and recovery provisions so that critical e-mails can be retrieved in the event of a disaster.  The new standard for mailbox size is 100Mb, but state employees with storage needs greater than 100 Mb can request an increase in that size.   

"This has all tied closely to the Governor's vision to transform state government," concluded Takai.  "It's a great example of a collaborative effort amongst all departments that has led to significant savings."