What’s more, IT life isn’t likely to get any simpler. The perfect storm looks to be on the horizon. A recent study by the Accenture Institute for High Performance and reported by Mike Vizard of ITBusinessEdge suggests that IT departments are “likely to be shaped more by forces outside the control of the IT organization” than by the IT department itself.

While we wait for the big blow, there are a lot of squalls IT has to navigate just to get through the day. I came away from some recent customer visits with this list of IT challenges they face:

• Demonstrate the ROI of all technology investments.
• Ensure solutions don’t indirectly drive up the cost of IT, such as more help-desk calls, unnecessary additions to the IT footprint, or difficult deployments which strain IT resources.
• Buy solutions that fit within the IT infrastructure. Because of the large investment within existing systems, any solution that doesn’t fit within the established standards requires a very strong business justification.
• Acquire programs that can enhance the value of existing infrastructure by driving higher usage are appealing.

So why make IT more complicated than it needs to be? Companies like yours have standardized on Adobe Acrobat to address many of these pain points. They simplified the licensing that supports enterprise-wide deployment and with that software license management. They benefit from enterprise-wide maintenance and support that helps them get the most out of the investment. Plus, Acrobat integrates easily to the IT environment.

For example, Arup, a global engineering and design firm, standardized its operations on the latest version of Acrobat using the Adobe enterprise license agreement (ELA) to distribute software to employees worldwide through the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager suite—a virtual software store. Arup employees can simply request Acrobat, submit the request for approval, and IT support will download the software directly to their desktops in an automated process.

For RSM McGladrey, a tax and assurance consultancy, the enterprise program with Adobe streamlined Acrobat licensing and deployment on an ongoing basis. Today, the company spends about two hours annually tracking and updating Acrobat software licenses—a 98 percent decrease over the previous time spent by IT.

Similarly, since moving to the enterprise contract, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has reduced IT maintenance and administrative costs because everyone throughout the agency is using the same version of Acrobat. In addition, predictable budget requirements result in more effective fiscal planning.

Bottom line, by standardizing on Acrobat across your IT environment you can save a lot of time and money. Check out the Adobe ELA to see where you can cut costs and save time.

Mark Grilli, senior director of Acrobat Solutions product marketing

But back to the question. Can Acrobat save you money? Short answer is yes.  Adobe Acrobat and its free companion, Adobe Reader, can have a positive impact on return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) across the enterprise.  But don’t take my word it.

Customers from a variety of businesses are finding that Adobe Acrobat is a proven solution that helps reduce IT cost and complexity. For example, tax consultancy, McGladrey, expects to save $600,000 over four years by standardizing on Acrobat, and that, they said, did not even begin to factor in all the IT time and effort saved.

Pharmaceuticals company, Astellas Pharma, who introduced Acrobat via the Adobe Volume Licensing program, which best suits large purchases, achieved cost reductions and centralized license management. “We can upgrade without incurring any other charges when a new version is released during the agreement term. This is extremely valuable to us,” said Shuichi Hiraki, associate manager of Infrastructure, Information Systems for Astrellas.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that in addition to saving $1.3 million in licensing costs in the first year, it estimates it will reduce costs by $750,000 per year by reducing the number of purchase transactions from more than 500 to a single transaction each year.

Quantitative Research

Recently, we commissioned the Forrester Consulting Group to look into the question, too. The study, “Total Economic Impact™ Study of Adobe Acrobat X,” looked at seven current Adobe Acrobat X customers and identified a series of IT and end user productivity costs savings by standardizing on Acrobat X. These include reimaging systems cost savings, end user productivity gains from more efficient patch deployments, IT cost savings in managing patch rollouts, and cost savings from converting PDF to Microsoft Word or Excel.

Based on the interviews, Forrester created a financial analysis for a composite organization of 1,000 Adobe Acrobat X users. Over three years, the IT staff time that the composite organization devoted to patch testing and release declined from seven months (pre-Acrobat X) to three weeks (with Acrobat X).  IT also saved three hours per machine on hardware reimaging by automating the deployment of Acrobat X using Microsoft SCCM. The three-year, risk-adjusted ROI for Forrester’s composite company was 112 percent, with a breakeven point (payback period) after deployment of 11.8 months.

The Forrester study helped confirm some things we already know about how Acrobat X can benefit an IT organization:

• Enhance existing systems and processes to increase organizational productivity
• Help safeguard systems and data
• Easy deployment and management across the entire enterprise
• Quick data collection using fillable PDF forms
• Streamline PDF tasks
• Expedite document reviews and approvals

Mike Vizard of IT BusinessEdge wrote recently, “Most companies are looking for a way to do what they have always done more efficiently rather than experimenting with something totally new and different no matter how much upside potential there might be.” If this is you, stay tuned.

In future posts, I’ll look at some of the topics from the Forrester study and pass along what customers are saying about the impact Acrobat is having on their IT organizations. In the meantime, check out the Acrobat IT Resource Center for tips and tricks and insights into how to make Acrobat work for your IT shop.

 Mark Grilli, senior director of Acrobat Solutions product marketing

This is no easy feat for IT. Where to start? I have found that the best organizations do this by first focusing on prioritizing the “pain points” of their end users.

My latest article in Lifehack expands more on the specific challenges I hear on daily basis from customers, like: “Editing PDF documents is a hassle” and “It’s hard to send large files with email and IT restrictions”. In the article, I suggest that IT organizations think beyond just offering tools and begin to leverage best in class practices for their business that address the common issues of the end user. This becomes even important as we move into a new business climate where we are not just trying to be productive on our PC’s, but also on our phones and tablets.

Thanks to feedback from our customers, this is how we think at Adobe when addressing their needs. Now, many companies including McGladrey, Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, and Canon are deploying Acrobat for reasons that directly address the pain points of their employees, customers and constituents, and they are all realizing extraordinary benefits.

You can read the full post in Lifehack here for a list of common customer IT “pain points”.

–Mark Grilli, senior director of product marketing, Acrobat Solutions

One of the ways that Epona sets itself apart from other IT consultancy firms is by concentrating on enhanced collaboration across its diverse workforce and clients worldwide. Epona president Bart van Wanroij recently talked with us about how the company is using Adobe Acrobat X Pro with Microsoft SharePoint, saying “Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft SharePoint are unparalleled at enabling more efficient collaboration.”

Epona is staying at the forefront of technology by operating in a cloud-based environment that helps safeguard proprietary information. Adds van Wanroij, “Working with SharePoint-hosted, Adobe PDF files, teams collaborate seamlessly in cloud-based environments as they share, review, and comment on materials.”

Today, Epona converts many of its business documents to PDF and uploads them to Microsoft SharePoint, as part of a process that not only saves paper, but also speeds up review and approval because all documents are centrally located and easily available in a single, reliable file format.

With Acrobat X, Epona is using a lot less paper, helping the company realize cost savings and environmental sustainability goals. By taking advantage of the PDF workflows supported by Acrobat X and Microsoft SharePoint, Epona is improving productivity all around. For instance, the company has found that fewer employees can now manage ten times more accounting transactions per month, thanks to the new efficiencies.

To read more about Epona and its use of Adobe Acrobat X Pro with Microsoft SharePoint, check out the full story here.

Still on Acrobat 9 and confused about the order in which to deploy security and quarterly updates?  Watch the video on creating an AIP for Reader 9.4.6. The same method also applies to Acrobat Reader 9.

Another method of creating a single installer is using a Bootstrapper. Steve shows how to modify the Setup.ini file to chain all Acrobat Updates using the command line. Whether you select the AIP or Bootstrapper method comes down to preference. While the bootstrapper method may be quicker to create, you’ll have less control should something go wrong.

If you are looking to customize Acrobat to suit your organization’s environment, the free Adobe Customization Wizard allows you to predefine features of Acrobat prior to deployment or enabled pre-deployment customization of both the installer and the installed product. Steve explains two lesser known features of the Customization Wizard:

• First up is using the files and folders option to add plugins, redaction files or joboptions. In Steve’s demo he adds JavaScript files to an Acrobat X installation.
• In the second Customization Wizard demo Steve explains how to predefine the users’ preferences by modifying the registry, for example security preferences you want streamlined throughout your organization. The example used in the video shows how to disable the Welcome screen in Acrobat 10.1.

Both the Files and Folders and the Registry features allow you to leverage an existing configuration via simple drag and drop or create new configurations.

We would like to receive your feedback about these clips. Did you find them useful? Do you have suggestions for topics you always wanted to get visual help with? Please leave your comments and rate the videos.

If you’ve been thinking about using alternatives to Acrobat, check out this brief video and learn about some key considerations: security, deployment and management, standards, innovation, savings, productivity, Sharepoint and more.

This Part 3 in a series shares configuration details for the Acrobat X family of products, including enhanced security, scripting controls, and other security related features.

Watch the full video here:

Check out the video here:

Check out the video here:

Read the full white paper here.

Learn more about the recently launched Acrobat IT Resource Center, here.

Whether you’re an IT manager or procurement manager, you tell us that that you want solutions that work well with Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and SharePoint. You want technology that accelerates project reviews but that simultaneously makes sure that sensitive documents are safeguarded. And you tell us that new technology solutions are only as good as how easy they are to deploy.

We heard your feedback, and we started thinking about the best ways to address your issues, and more important, provide a means for you to learn from the trends and concerns that face your IT professional peers every day. We want to share something that’s information-rich and constantly refreshed, but not overwhelming. We came up with the Acrobat IT Resource Center.

We envision the IT Resource Center as a destination for you to not only learn more about Adobe and Acrobat technology, but also as a way for you to seek advice and perspective from IT thought leaders. As a matter of fact, we’ve got some excellent content lined up now with more great content coming soon. Our first whitepaper in the IT Resource Center, “IT’s Next Challenge,” takes a look at the next steps for IT to collaborate beyond office walls, enable IT’s infrastructure to better support the increase of rich media within documents, and of course, reduce costs by being more efficient. You’ll read about a few of our great Acrobat customers like Hassell, Dividi Projects and Bombardier who have made great strides increasing the efficiency of document collaboration and exchange solutions to meet business objectives.

The IT Resource Center will also include valuable information from Adobe Acrobat IT evangelist Joel Geraci’s blog “IT Matters” and Acrobat power users to discuss resources and get the latest news. Also stay tuned for an array of videos hosted by our team that highlights trends in IT and the key Acrobat capabilities for IT.

Not only do we look forward to continuing to hear your thoughts about challenges facing IT, but we’re also excited about sharing some of our great stories, industry insight, and of course, solutions with you. Let us know what you think about the IT Resource Center. We’re looking forward to continuing this dialogue with you, let me know what you think, mgrilli@adobe.com

Mark Grilli, Director of Product Marketing, Acrobat Solutions