July 7, 2008. Houston, TX. Cogent Company and Microsoft have launched a new initiative to help customers identify, unlock, and capture the business value of the Microsoft Office system… the Office System Business Value Planning Service (OSBVPS). Through structured, multi-day OSBVPS engagements,  Cogent will work with customers to identify, design, and implement improvements to an existing business process using Office system technology. Office system technology includes both the Office productivity applications, such as Outlook, Word, Excel, InfoPath, etc., and the powerful server products in the Office SharePoint server family, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Excel Server, Forms Server, and the related PerformancePoint for business intelligence.

Cogent's clients who execute a OSBVPS will see a number of benefits, including: 

• Realize a greater return on existing Office System technology investment
• Solve real problems that employees face every day with a familiar technology platform
• Build a convincing business case to drive change and improve business processes

"There are a number of misperceptions in the market about Microsoft's Office system. First, Microsoft sells Office solely as a productivity suite," said Marc Hoppers in Houston at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference. "They (Microsoft) and partners who don't talk about Office applications like Outlook and Excel as business applications and as a development platform are missing an opportunity to help Microsoft's customers leverage an extensive development platform." Hoppers went on to say, "Second, when the Office applications aren't discussed in the context of the  Office server products, Microsoft customers end up unaware of new features and benefits designed to drive business process efficiency and effectiveness."

OSBVPS is an initiative where Cogent works with its clients to deliver a 3, 5, 10 or 15 day service engagement to drive customer adoption. OSBVPS benefits the Office customers additionally by following a joint investment model where Microsoft, Cogent, and the client share cost of the engagement. The

Each OSBVPS has the following overarching goals:

• Reduce the cost/uncertainty of  adoption.
• Create a customized Office System Adoption Plan.
• Develop relationship between customer and partner
• Demonstrate Adoption Best Practices

Depending on the desired engagement length, Cogent will deliver a current state process analysis, future state process design, a high-level business case for the proposed solution, as well as a high-level adoption/implementation plan and a proposal for additional services to implement the solution.

If you are interested in learning more about how Cogent can help you maximize the business value of the Office productivity and server applications, please contact Cogent at 214.341.1004. Also, ask about Cogent Company's other SharePoint and Office services.