Case Study: CEG Worldwide

Financial consultants give their global staff advanced email and collaboration through Intermedia.NET hosted Exchange.

CEG Worldwide outsources global Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to Intermedia.NET

CEG Worldwide provides financial advisors with insights, strategies and tools to significantly grow their businesses while better serving their clients. As a 'virtual company' whose principals work from home offices in multiple locations across four states, its IT requirements are far from typical.

"We needed collaborative tools that would help us work closely, but due to our decentralized nature we didn't want to host any physical equipment," said CEG's managing principal, Lewis Schiff. "We certainly didn't want to hire any IT staff, because of how that would impact the bottom line. What we required was a hosted solution that would allow us to function with agility by managing emails and sharing calendars and files."

CEG considered several Webmail-based solutions such as POP mail, but elected to go with what Schiff called "the more robust Microsoft Exchange solution that several of our partners were already familiar with." The company signed on with Intermedia.NET, which allows customers to easily manage hosting services via its proprietary HostPilot Control Panel.

Focusing on core business

With Intermedia.NET, CEG was able to focus on its core business while all its hosting needs were being met without any dedicated in-house resources. "We are able to do all our own scheduling by sharing calendars; we can access our email remotely through Outlook Web Access and, in some cases, via the wireless email solution, which works beautifully in an Exchange environment. We also store a great deal of information on the Intermedia.NET server at a very reasonable, competitive cost," said Schiff.

Because of its leading empirical research expertise and proven business experience, advisors, CPA, insurance representatives and others in the financial services industry rely on CEG Worldwide for its pragmatic and effective guidance. CEG in turn relies on Intermedia.NET for reliable performance and security.

"Outages are rare and quickly resolved, and we have never had a problem with viruses being spread through email channels," added Schiff.

The HostPilot control panel is one of Intermedia.NET's key differentiators, according to Schiff: "We have a lot of control over preferences and so forth. I am not an IT person, yet I can go in and very easily manipulate every setting I've ever wanted. I have never come across a problem or a challenge I couldn't solve using HostPilot. In fact, I've worked for companies that had internal IT support and they couldn't always do the kinds of things that I can now do with Intermedia.NET's tools."

Despite his new-found self-reliance, Schiff is quick to praise the Intermedia.NET support staff: "They are very genial and very committed to providing solutions. Emails are replied to quickly, and if I should call – possibly because I have a question that is too complex for email – the response is equally as good. I've left messages for tech support people and they've called me back from home. You can't ask for more than that."

Taking the Business Forward

When CEG Worldwide launched its Australian division, all of the company's Australian partners quickly got online with Intermedia.NET. "It's a pretty robust system where we can use the same email account," explained Schiff. "Having the same account means we can manage schedules and share information across the continents."

As CEG worldwide expands, its principals plan to continue to work with Intermedia.NET. "Intermedia.NET is continually refining its offerings and adding new ones, such as their advanced wireless options," said Schiff. "Everything they provide is really powerful and if they added new services we would definitely investigate them."

For more information, please read about our hosted Exchange services.