Company: Citizen Watch United Kingdom, Ltd.
Location: Berks, United Kingdom
Contact: Gary Read
Designation: IT Manager
Industry: Retail Distribution
Number of employees: 50
Products in use: GFI MailEssentials and GFI MailArchiver
 

Citizen Watch United Kingdom, Ltd. are the English representatives of the Citizen Watch Company who have been producing watches since 1924. With a workforce of 50 employees, Citizen Watch UK needed an effective anti spam filter that would block spam from reaching users' inboxes, as well as an effective email archiving system that would help with the search and retrieval of emails that constitute an important part of the business’s work load. Citizen Watch UK installed two solutions from GFI's software portfolio and found that both technologies, GFI MailEssentials and GFI MailArchiver, worked extremely well for them and provided them with the solutions that they had been after.
 

Citizen Watch United Kingdom, Ltd. are the importers and wholesalers for Citizen Watches in the UK distributing Citizen watches to retailers around the country. As with most business transactions nowadays, email is an important means of communication for them, as orders, invoices and other business deals are conducted via this system and with an employee base of 50 people, all emails need to be accounted for. The ever-growing problem of spam was also a factor that the company wanted to combat in order to protect its network as well as reduce time wastage on behalf of the employees who would have to scan their inboxes regularly to delete the spam that would manage to infiltrate the email servers. Citizen Watch United Kingdom, Ltd. had their problems clearly identified and knew that they needed to find a solution.

IT Manager, Gary Read commented, “We required a spam/junk mail filter, hence the purchase of GFI MailEssentials. We also required an email archiving system that would also give users access to archived email. In both cases the solutions had to fit into our existing infrastructure, be easy to implement, and easy to maintain.”
 

Citizen Watch UK decided to install GFI software as it fit with their existing infrastructure, was easy to implement, and easy to maintain. Moreover it offered an affordable solution for the company. “Both products represented good value for money in comparison with other comparable products on the market,” said Mr. Read.

“The implementation in both cases was relatively painless, but did require careful reading of the manuals before actually trying anything. Similarly, from an administration perspective, it paid to make sure we were clear on what we should do before actually diving in and just doing it. From a user perspective, MailArchiver is straightforward to use, and we’ll be looking to upgrade to the new version with Outlook functionality in the near future.”

Although Citizen Watch UK's decision to install GFI software was not primarily as a cost-effective solution, it still proved to be a secure investment as for “relatively little investment we have provided the company with a secure mail back-up system” confirmed Mr. Read.

Mr. Read asserted that the installation of this software definitely saved time in operation efforts. “Spam mail is now easily identifiable, and quickly removed. MailArchiver provides immediate access for the user to old emails, and removes the need for intervention by the IT department.”
 

The benefits offered by GFI software solutions were immediately evident, especially with GFI MailEssentials, as the lack of spam in users’ inboxes was instantly obvious. GFI MailArchiver also provided peace of mind to the IT department who could rely on this software to provide them with any emails that they may need to recover in the future.

“Spam mail was suddenly identified and each user was able to action those mails in whatever way they wanted. In some cases, we don't even forward the mail to the users. GFI MailArchiver also gave us peace of mind that we would no longer have to spend a tremendous amount of effort retrieving lost or deleted email.”

The installation of GFI MailEssentials and GFI MailArchiver helped Citizen Watch UK in management and compliance issues as awareness regarding company email became widespread, as well as technology issues since both products integrated seamlessly with their existing infrastructure.

“With GFI MailEssentials, we now have a simple way of ensuring we add a generic disclaimer to all email, as well as filtering the thousands of junk mails we receive on a daily basis. With GFI MailArchiver, we now have accessibility to “deleted” or “lost” email – including attachments. Now there is also awareness within the company that emails can be used to determine accountability, and retrieved at any time. Nothing goes un-noticed.”

Apart from the benefits of being able to retrieve all emails quickly and simply and thus being a positive feature for both management and employees, Citizen Watch also made a change to their employee employment contracts by ensuring that all employees knew that work emails are monitored thus increasing security benefits. “Employment contracts were amended to make people aware of the fact that all emails were now archived and accessible” said Mr. Read.
 

“I think we were very lucky in that the products we selected to trial were the ideal solutions to our problems, hence we didn’t need to look any further than GFI. The web-site and information available meant that we could check that the software was likely to do what we wanted before downloading and trialing. Thanks for two quality products that deliver what it says on the box.”
 

For more information about GFI MailArchiver visit: http://www.gfi.com/mailarchiver/ and GFI MailEssentials visit: http://www.gfi.com/mes/.
 

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

October 2008