Few things are more important to an organisation than the people that work there, and the way that employees carry out their roles, is changing. From breaking down geographical barriers, to helping us achieve more, technology is vital to ensure that businesses remain competitive in an ever-changing world.
Microsoft Teams is a tool designed to transform the way people work and interact with each other, with collaboration firmly in mind. Over the past three years, Teams has grown significantly in both new capabilities and customer usage, as the hub for teamwork that brings people together and fosters a culture of engagement and inclusion.
Below are a few examples of some European businesses who are already using Teams to propel themselves into a new world of work:
Air France
When it comes to air travel, there’s an entire world hidden behind the scenes that passengers never see. Hundreds of different things must come together, on time, for flights to go smoothly. Air France is one of the leading airlines that has embraced the power of Office 365 and Teams as part of its standard workflow.
Instead of relying on radios to communicate, Air France employees responsible for check-in and boarding services now use Microsoft Teams to connect with colleagues in the field. “Previously, our firstline staff, such as ground crew, and their managers had no way to share information, making it difficult to work as a team to ensure our passengers received great customer service,” says Sylvain Goletto, IT Exploitation Manager for ground services employees at 18 Air France locations.
Now, managers share a daily summary of ground crew schedules and duties in OneNote that are stored in Teams, and employees add to these notes during the day, so that everyone from check-in to boarding gate can work better together to ensure a seamless loading process for passengers. “We used WhatsApp before,” Goletto states “but it never worked well on the managers’ PCs. Plus, we have greater confidence in the security of Teams.”
Gilles Gateau, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, at Air France states that “Today, we are one of the leading airlines in terms of the tools that we make available to our employees. With our mobile work environments built on Office 365, it’s easy to see how global collaboration improves operational performance and drives future opportunities.”
Beiersdorf
Beiersdorf has come a long way from Paul Beiersdorf’s quaint shop in Hamburg more than a century ago. Today, the company boasts 19,000 employees working around the globe, and its leading brand, NIVEA Creme, is sold in more than 200 countries. Recognising that outdated technologies needed to be replaced, the company sought a communications and collaboration makeover that would help its migration from an on-premises infrastructure to the cloud.
As with other companies with employees spread across the world, the Beiersdorf faced communication and collaboration challenges. Each region has its own executives, production facilities, and distribution centres. Combined with differences in culture, language, and local preference, the need for a flexible solution is clear.
According to Ivan Brkic, Team Lead for the Department of Modern Digital Workplace at Beiersdorf, the adoption of Office 365, which includes Teams, has transformed the way employees are able to do their jobs: “The beauty of Office 365 is its microservice approach. We can give people the apps they need for collaboration in a way that best fits their work style and needs,” he says.
Helsinki University
Teaching is a profession with collaboration and communication at its very core. At the University of Helsinki in Finland, a world-class teacher training program prepares teachers for the challenges and rewards of educating Finland’s youth. The Viikki Teacher Training School at the University of Helsinki chose Microsoft Office 365 and its collaboration features such as Teams, to empower collaboration between students and their teachers.
Jani Kiviharju, Mathematics and ICT teacher at the Viikki Teacher Training School knows first-hand the importance of communication between teachers and students: “With Teams and OneNote, there’s finally a great way to share and distribute materials that have been used in class, and it’s easier to continue with things where we left off.”
Once they graduate from university training school, the Finnish government trusts those teachers to use the tools that work best for their students. As one of the world’s premier education institutions, the University of Helsinki is also preparing today’s teachers with the knowledge and tools they will need to keep up with the technological knowledge of future generations of students.
ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE
Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE is one of the most successful independent media companies in Europe with a strong presence in television and digital markets. Now, the company has reoriented its IT infrastructure and converted 5,000 jobs to Microsoft 365 with Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility and Security from the Microsoft Cloud.
The media company relies on Teams’ integrated collaboration solution which enables it to provide its employees and teams with flexible collaboration, low risk of failure and high data security from European data centers anywhere, at any time, on all devices and platforms. The introduction of the new solutions were also accompanied by videos and tutorials that familiarise employees with the possibilities of working together in Microsoft Teams, or co-authoring important cloud-based documents in real-time, for fully smooth collaboration.
“We see a great opportunity in the further development of our workplace IT to strengthen our company through digital transformation. Our goal is to provide our employees with the appropriate work tools to create the foundation for future growth,” explains Drs. Johannes Wechsler, CIO at ProSiebenSat.1.
TalkTalk
UK telecom provider TalkTalk recognises the freedom that collaboration tools such as Teams can provide for its employees, especially when it comes to enabling flexible working locations to allow its employees in London, Manchester, at home and on the road, to work together effectively.
The company believes that allowing employees to work the way they want while encouraging them to share ideas freely fosters ingenuity, helping them remain competitive in a fiercely contested market. “With Microsoft 365, we’ve been able to extend remote, flexible work styles to all our employees, which has been transformative for us culturally,” says Mark Dickinson, Chief People Officer TalkTalk Telecom Group.
In addition to allowing existing employees to work on projects and communicate with each other remotely, this flexibility is also attractive for keeping and attracting talent. Andrew Dacombe, Director of Colleague Systems states that “There’s a strong move in the UK, and especially in our industry, to offer flexible work options—work from home, split shifts, condensed workweeks—and we need to provide these options if we want to attract the best talent.”
For more information on what’s new in Teams, please visit the official Microsoft 365 blog post.
