DESTIL is a wholesaler for construction, industry and safety with 50 branches in the Netherlands. After several acquisitions, the organization decided to invest in a uniform work environment, with uniform applications. Part of this is a new online workplace with Office 365 as a basis.
“That’s the time to invest in a new online cloud workplace.”
Mirthe Dekkers
Mirthe Dekkers, E-commerce & Marketing Manager at DESTIL: “We still had a data center with physical servers. When we decided to migrate the entire organization to one ERP environment, we also decided to move all our IT to the cloud. That’s the perfect time to invest in a new online cloud workspace.”
Ease of use
On the recommendation of IT partner KNNS, DESTIL contacted Synigo. Like KNNS, Synigo believes that IT is not about the technology, but about ease of use. IT should support the employee and not the other way around. Dekkers: “Synigo has developed a cloud workplace for us where employees can find all the information and applications relevant to them on one home screen. On that home screen are your applications, such as ERP and Outlook, but also an event calendar, fault reports and our newsletter, which we used to send to everyone via e-mail.”
“Focus not on the technology, but on the ease of use.”
Mirthe Dekkers
A large adoption program was not necessary, Dekkers says. “At the workplace, a cabinet had to be physically replaced. The IT employee who came to do that explained the new workplace to his colleague and showed where to find what. The online workplace is clear and uncluttered, so extensive training was not necessary. If employees still had questions after that, they were helped by the help desk.”
Starting with simple basics
DESTIL deliberately kept the initial setup of the new cloud workspace simple. “It resembles our old SharePoint environment,” says Dekkers. “We now have a lot of extra functionality through Office 365, but we have deliberately not made all of these available immediately. We want to let people get used to the new way of logging in first and then add more features step by step.”
“Keep it simple and improve step by step.”
Mirthe Dekkers
Collaborate remotely
One of those functions is Teams, which is already being used on a small scale by project teams whose employees work at different locations. Dekkers: “That’s very handy; then you can still work together perfectly well with less travel time. You have one online collaboration environment for all members of the project team. You can hold meetings online, work together on documents et cetera.”
Continue to improve
Three months after the implementation of the new online workplace, DESTIL is entering a process with Synigo to roll out more functionality. “We want to keep improving and developing, but in a way that suits us and fits how we work. That’s why we are so happy with the cooperation with KNNS and Synigo; they make sure that we continuously focus on added value for our employees and don’t get lost in all kinds of trendy tools that add nothing. So my main advice to other organizations migrating to an online workplace is: keep it simple.”
