There was a time when business could grow simply by meeting existing demand.

But in today’s hyper-competitive market — globalized and saturated as it is — the most successful companies must leverage their strengths to create new demand, and invent new opportunities.

Marketel is one of Montréal’s biggest agencies, offering advertising, promotions, sponsorships, design, interactive communications, media and custom publishing services, to a range of high-profile national and international clients. The award-winning agency uses its talents to create successful campaigns for clients such as Air Canada, Labatt Breweries, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, MasterCard, Maybelline, Nestlé, Pratt & Whitney, Rogers Wireless, the Société des alcools du Québec and more.

Marketel’s ability to build demand on behalf of such clients means it must increase demands on — and opportunities for — its own infrastructure.

It’s not only about creating demand, but doing so in an efficient and cost effective manner. Regardless of functionality, the bigger picture shows that total costs of deployment and of support are significantly less with the Apple platform, Gauvin asserts.

“If you’ve done the cost comparisons, you know it’s a myth that PCs are cheaper. Look at the same quality, the same power: Mac is cheaper. The total cost of ownership is less, and we are talking about a 45 or 55 per cent reduction,” he says, citing the pricing and licensing structure that has no server fees and unlimited users as a huge savings over other options.

So the company’s IT department helps identify potential — not just existing — demand. Its mandate is create new business by pushing for leading edge solutions and dynamic applications. Here, the bet is on innovation; that by making things better, costs will go down as service, speed and reliability goes up.

“If you’ve done the cost comparisons, you know it’s a myth that PCs are cheaper. Look at the same quality, the same power: Apple is cheaper. The total cost of ownership is less, and we are talking about a 45 or 55 per cent reduction.”

“‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is one approach, but we’re doing the opposite here.”

Simon Gauvin understands the competing visions for information technology acquisition and management, but he clearly prefers one approach to the other. He’s Director of Information Technology at Marketel.

As Gauvin warns, “Migration nightmares come from waiting too long. The mentality that you can save money by flying low, putting several services on one server and just running with it will cause big problems in the long run.”

Marketel’s IT team is driving a major migration process, turning the information technology infrastructure away from the ‘it ain’t broke’ mode to the ‘look what else we can do’ mode. They’re increasing the availability, functionality, speed and security of information technology infrastructure and its ability to support new and on-going business activity.

In other words, they’re moving to Mac.

Marketel is building a more effective and more efficient back-end operation to better serve its clients. It’s using Apple Computer hardware, software and operating system to support business activities such as content creation and production, web development, database management, ftp, file sharing, data archiving and back-up and much more.

“We’re centralizing everything on the Mac,” he says simply. “We’re taking advantage of what they offer, and increasing our overall speed and availability.” The company is realizing more productivity not just on the desktop, but for server and storage and infrastructure needs, using Mac OS X Server, Xserve and Xserve RAID technology.

“The more Mac infrastructure, the better service the client will have,” he enthuses. “We’re taking advantage of all aspects of the platform — and we’re saving tons of money!”

Next Page: Entering the Back Office