This is a special episode where we look at a business case study published by Microsoft at their Customer Stories website.

This is a must listen episode if you are planning to streamline business data and systems using the Microsoft 365.

In this episode we will look into the Modern Work journey of TransBlue a professional services business based in Lynnwood, Washington.

Transblue employs 20 people split between a general contracting business and a facility management company.

Before embarking on the Modern Work journey, TransBlue was facing issues with:

Problems:

Lack of data security - Users are using Dropbox to store and work on business critical data.
Lacked a unified data aggregation solution - If anyone left the company, there was a strong chance that their data would leave with them.
Microsoft Office 365 underutilisation - TransBlue had three individual subscriptions to Microsoft Office 365, used mainly for email.

Not just TransBlue, I come across other organisations having similar issues. They have Office 365 licenses but are very much under utilitised.

Once TransBlue has identified these three main concerns, here is how they have resolved them.

Solution:

They have consolidated the three Office 365 subscriptions into one Microsoft 365 Business subscription, TransBlue was able to retire the company's instance of Dropbox, eliminating hundreds of dollars in monthly costs. They have also eliminated unnecessary tasks and redundant employee accounts and created efficiency gains of 80 work hours every week, resulting in a further $2,400 reduction in monthly costs.

Now personal work files are protected in employee-specific OneDrive for Business accounts and organizational content is easily managed and shared with SharePoint, both inside and outside the company. With this change, TransBlue employees now have access to all of those files anywhere, on any device.

Benefits

TransBlue employees now use SharePoint from the job site to quickly access and review contract details with subcontractors. In the past, project managers had to send emails or text messages to the head office and then wait for a PDF or photo of a document to be sent back, which resulted in delays and miscommunications. Now, working from the same smartphones as before, project managers have full access to company documents whenever and wherever the need arises.

TransBlue has also started using Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business to streamline their business communications. Let’s hear an Audio clip where TransBlue employees and management share their Modern Work experiences.

Lessons Learned:

Here are some key takeaways and lessons learned for me from this case study.

Conduct an audit of business systems in your organisation.
If you have an existing Office 365 subscription, Conduct an audit of user licenses and adoption.
Track the data lifecycle across these business system and look for security loopholes.
Start the rollout of a subset of Office 365 Apps such as OneDrive for Business and SharePoint before looking into advanced tools such as Teams and Power Platform.
Setup and Use the mobile apps of the Office 365 to maximise ROI and user adoption.

Links mentioned:

https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/transblue-professional-services-microsoft365

Vlog 46 - OneDrive for Business vs SharePoint Online

Office 365 Apps for Remote Work – Chat with Stefano Tempesta and Chander Ramanathan

Stories of Modern WorkBy Jag KakarlapudiApr 06, 2020