The Client

The client is a specialist bank in the UK, headquartered in London, that provides a range of financial services including mortgages, bridging finance, development finance, and savings accounts. They focus on delivering attentive, award-winning service to businesses, charities, and individuals, supporting those often overlooked by other banks.

The Challenge

The client, which has around 400 staff, embarked on a comprehensive project to adopt Microsoft 365. The goal was to enhance communication, collaboration, and productivity throughout the organisation. We partnered with them to support this significant adoption initiative, ensuring a smooth transition and maximising the benefits of the new platform.

Objectives & Approach

The project aimed to ensure the successful adoption of SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services by the client. This was achieved through a comprehensive training and adoption program designed to enable all individuals within the organisation to effectively utilise these tools, enhancing overall communication, collaboration, and productivity.

Discovery Sessions

• Introduced the client’s employees to the broad concepts and features of SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive for Business.

• Conducted initial training sessions with the core client project team to gather feedback and make necessary adjustments.

Training Delivery

• Delivered individual online "lunch and learn" sessions to 20 client departments.

• Conducted online SharePoint expert training sessions.

• Created a learning and adoption environment within the client’s tenant to be used during the expert sessions.

• Supported the client’s project team with planning and scoping the training sessions.

Adoption Strategy

• Implemented a multi-channel approach to ensure successful adoption of SharePoint and Teams, followed by other Microsoft 365 services as they were enabled by the client.

• Focused on delivering training to identified site and team owners, as well as specific training for SharePoint administrators and internal IT and support teams.

• Adopted a phased training approach, starting with early adopters and evangelists, followed by business areas, and finally HR and finance departments.

Outcomes

• Developed a suite of online training sessions to ensure the client’s departments had the required knowledge and skills to work with their documents via Teams and SharePoint.

• Enabled the client to develop internal experts to support the ongoing needs of the departments.

• Provided the communications team with content owner training to manage SharePoint communication and team pages.

• Delivered a bespoke internal company directory using the Microsoft 365 Power Platform.

Key Benefits

• Enhanced user productivity and consistency across the business through in-depth training.

• Reduced data risks by consolidating content into a centralised and approved data storage facility.

• Opened opportunities for more sophisticated file and process automation in the future.

• Improved internal knowledge sharing and discovery through the company directory.

Conclusion

The adoption of Microsoft 365 has significantly benefited the client. Enhanced communication, collaboration, and productivity were achieved through comprehensive training. Employees are now proficient in using SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams, leading to improved consistency and reduced data risks.

The centralised data storage and bespoke internal company directory have further streamlined operations and knowledge sharing. This project has also paved the way for future automation opportunities, ensuring the client remains technologically advanced.