Background
A global leader in developing and manufacturing automotive components unified several separate auto manufacturing entities into a single company. Insight helped integrate the complex, disparate digital environments of the merged companies onto a single cohesive global platform.
Challenge
The client had acquired a number of international automotive technology businesses, each with its own systems and company culture. The company wanted to streamline communication and improve efficiency by integrating the company’s systems, people and technology into a single entity under the new brand.
The organisation turned to Insight for systems integration support to design a new, shared platform on Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint and Teams, and migrate the existing systems from on-premise Microsoft Office and SharePoint. A major part of the project was communicating the changes and integrating over 3,600 employees to achieve a new, unified way of working.Some of the acquired businesses were still operating in the same way they had before the acquisition, within siloes that didn’t share any systems or information with other parts of the business – leading to significant inefficiencies.
The solution required more than technology, it needed a well thought through change management approach too.
“Insight provided great programme management support. They put the teams together to work on a technical level, and also delivered the change management. Insight helped us build a cohesive project and created the bridge from the past to the future.”
“Insight understood the business as it was, and what we wanted it to be.”
Head of IT, Europe
Solution and Outcome
The client’s strategy involved adopting Microsoft 365 as an integrated, shared business environment across the whole organisation. SharePoint and Teams platforms were used to overcome the communication and collaboration challenges caused by the incompatible systems that were holding back business. Insight consolidated multiple Microsoft 365 tenants,and other platforms, into a single centralised tenant in Europe.
The low-level design approach that Insight took provided a detailed description for every individual system component and multiple use cases. From this, Insight and the client worked together to build the new, integrated environment and embark on the transformation programme.
Alongside delivering the technical solution, building the technical teams and project managing the migration, Insight’s adoption and change management services played a vital role in ensuring the success of the transformation.
Insight set up pilot groups to help design the employee communications strategy. These revealed the common issues, behaviours and cultural differences at every site. From this, Insight delivered a step-by-step user guide to help employees adopt the new suite of Microsoft collaboration applications and processes, as well as a comprehensive FAQ to empower the support teams.
The project was progressing rapidly, but with over 13,000 different SharePoint sites to migrate, Insight had to overcome some migration challenges that caused problems when people tried to access the system.
Insight’s programme and project managers worked tirelessly with the automotive supplier’s teams to identify and quickly fix the problem. The client’s Head of IT said, “Insight told us ‘We will not rest until the project is delivered’ – and they didn’t.”
Why Insight?
Working with Insight means the client now has a unified business based on a shared platform across all the merged companies. Engineers now talk, share documents and collaborate directly on joint projects. The siloed approach that was holding back business has been eliminated. This project was vital to support the automotive supplier’s ‘one company’ goal.
The new, streamlined processes align with the wider group. There is no longer duplication, which has saved money and improved efficiency within the business. Thanks to the teamwork approach between Insight’s adoption and change management team and the client, everyone feels fully part of the company and the new brand.
