Our customer is one of India’s leading online marketplaces with over 6 lakh merchant partners, hosting more than 2.8 crore products and delivering to 30,000+ pin codes throughout the country. Their 11,000+ employees distributed across the country have helped them master the unstructured online categories of home and kitchen, fashion, electronics, and daily utility items.
Our customer was using a combination of Gmail, communication, and collaboration. Their quick growth necessitated the implementation of a more streamlined enterprise-level communication, document management, and collaboration solution. Embee’s implementation of Microsoft 365 ticked all their requirement boxes. It has improved employee productivity without compromising on data security.
Multiple Mailing solutions and lack of scalability resulting in operational issues
Established as a start-up, our customer began with a small set of employees and fragmented communication and collaboration solutions. Subsets of employees were using various kinds of solutions, including Gmail, Google Docs, Hangouts, Rackspace, and Exchange. However, as the organization quickly grew both in transaction volumes and the number of employees, gaping holes were exposed in this fragmented system.
The customer’s collaboration network was not able to scale up to their expectations and was becoming increasingly cumbersome to manage. Their primary e-mail platform Gmail was severely limiting users both in terms of storage flexibility and mobility. Simultaneously, there was a pressing business need for a robust, scalable, and integrated e-mail and document management system.
Some of the primary challenges being faced by our customer included:
Difficulty in management
Multiple mailing solutions resulted in multiple mail-servers, which were difficult and costly to manage. The solutions were also not entirely compatible with each other, which led to operational issues in file sharing, formatting, mail receipt, etc. This impacted the productivity of the workforce and would lead to delays in routine work.
Limited storage
The existing solution had a limited storage allowance of 5 to 10 GB of storage per user. Employees would have to constantly delete e-mails, which resulted in data loss. While the Gmail setup did provide an option for adding more storage, this was an expensive proposition on a per-user level.
Lacking mobility
Google’s Gmail and Google Drive, while served the purpose in a desktop scenario, became severely lacking and incompatible across devices – severely limiting productivity on the go.
Lack of data security
The existence of different e-mail services in the system made it impossible to implement central levels of security functionalities such as file-level policies, multi-factor authentication, and user-level permissions. In order to clear up their mail accounts, employees were storing heavy attachments locally – this made them more vulnerable to theft and espionage.
Fractured collaboration
As employees were using tools ranging from Google Docs, Hangouts to Microsoft Office, Skype, and others, the organization was facing fractured collaboration. The lack of document standardization as well as a unified communication solution made collaboration very difficult – resulting in wasted time and productivity.
Embee Implemented M365 Solutions to enable enterprise-level communication and communication strategy
Considering the customer’s requirements and the existence of Microsoft solutions in the landscape, Embee conducted a proof-of-concept on the customer environment where we showcased Mail, Skype, and SharePoint capabilities that could enable the customer to move to an enterprise-level communication and collaboration strategy.
Some of the key features of the solution include:
Moving all email accounts To Exchange Online
As a part of the solution, all mail accounts were moved to Exchange Online which was significantly more user friendly and feature-driven than Gmail.
Ample storage capacity
Exchange and Microsoft 365 provided much larger storage capacity as compared to Gmail – and employees were set free of the need to delete emails, clear their inbox to receive new mails, or store local backups.
OneDrive and SharePoint implementation
The implementation of OneDrive enabled the easy sharing of large-sized documents between the employees of the organization. Real-time collaboration features enabled users to work on documents concurrently. SharePoint enabled the organization to create neatly structured knowledge repositories and content portals.
Introduction to Skype for Business
The implementation of Skype for Business across the organization enabled instant messaging – users could immediately check while others were online and message them. Features such as audio and video conferencing as well as desktop sharing further improved collaboration.
Embee’s M365 Solutions powered by Microsoft Streamlined User Experience and Improved Productivity
Embee’s solution enabled the customer to move from a restrictive Google mail environment to a feature-full Microsoft 365 system for better productivity and management,
Some of the key benefits delivered include:
Improved productivity
The user-friendly and intuitive Exchange UI of Microsoft 365 helped employees get access to all commonly used mail features irrespective of their device, location, or network. A large storage quota associated with each account improved productivity as employees would not need to spend effort in deleting emails and storing attachments offline.
Better collaboration
Skype for Business enabled instant communication – eliminating time delays in execution and decision making. OneDrive and SharePoint enabled easy document sharing -further enhancing document security and real-time collaboration.
Ease of management
The elimination of multiple online and offline mail servers simplified the tasks of the IT department. All processes -such as credential management, file permissions management, access management and data security could now be managed through a single dashboard that provides better control than the basic features provided by Gmail and Google Apps.
Considering that e-mail and communication is such a vital function for any modern organization, our customer was not able to halt operations for the migration to the new system. Embee conducted an in-place migration for the customer with no downtime in working hours. To make the transition seamless, Embee also conducted 1 on 1 workshop for the administrators and trained the end-users.
Embee provides a wide range of solutions to enable seamless and cost-effective digital transformation for businesses. With 500K+ active seats on Office 365 and the experience of 120k+ virtual machines deployed and managed – Embee is your partner that can help you transition effortlessly. Connect with a team of certified experts to accelerate growth, design a future-ready strategy, increase savings, and amp up productivity. Bring out the best in your workforce cost-effectively with VirtuaPlace.
