The Challenge
Accord Appraisals is a professional services firm specialising in property and asset appraisals. The business was running on ageing email infrastructure and disconnected file storage, with no centralised CRM, no intranet, and no structured document management. Client relationships were tracked in spreadsheets. Appraisal reports were stored across local drives and email attachments. There was no single place for staff to find company information or collaborate on engagements.
What Evocate Delivered
Evocate deployed a comprehensive Microsoft 365 environment covering multiple workloads:
- Exchange Online migration: approximately 10 mailboxes migrated from legacy email, including calendar, contacts, and archive data
- File migration to SharePoint: local and network file storage consolidated into structured SharePoint Online libraries
- theHub (Evocate intranet): branded intranet for company news, policies, templates, and quick links to business applications
- DocsEvo (Evocate document management): SharePoint based document management for appraisal reports with metadata tagging, version control, and structured search
- Dynamics 365 CRM: client and engagement tracking replacing spreadsheet based relationship management, integrated with Outlook and SharePoint
- Power BI: reporting dashboards for business performance and client engagement metrics
Outcomes
Accord now operates from a single Microsoft 365 platform where email, files, client records, and internal communications all live together. Appraisal reports are stored in DocsEvo with metadata tagging that makes any document findable in seconds, replacing the old method of searching through email attachments and local drives. Dynamics 365 gives appraisers structured client relationship tracking with engagement history visible directly from Outlook. The theHub intranet provides a single front door for company policies, templates, and operational information. Power BI dashboards give management visibility into business performance and client pipeline that was previously assembled manually in spreadsheets.
Why This Matters
Professional services firms live and die by their ability to find the right document at the right time and maintain strong client relationships. Accord’s engagement shows how a smaller firm can achieve enterprise grade capability (CRM, document management, intranet, and cloud email) through Evocate’s integrated Microsoft 365 approach, without the complexity or cost of assembling multiple point solutions. The deployment of both theHub and DocsEvo (Evocate’s own products) demonstrates how our products integrate with the broader Microsoft 365 platform to deliver immediate business value.
