R&M increased engagement and innovation power with MondayCoffee and Office 365

Summary

R&M (Reichle & De-Massari AG) has developed and produced cabling solutions for high-end communication networks since 1964. With its high level of product quality and innovative, forward-looking system design, the company ensures that networks are future-proof and investments secure for the long term. R&M is the market leader in Switzerland and belongs to the top players in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The company is represented in more than 40 countries on all continents, where it has its very own market organizations.

R&M introduced a digital workplace to offer its organization new tools for improved collaboration and communication. The organization needed to replace the old on-premise SharePoint intranet with a more modern, user-friendly platform based on Office 365 with enhanced social communication features to foster internal communication and engagement. Furthermore, the company’s subsidiaries outside Switzerland were growing and required improved cooperation in terms of a faster and more agile information & communication flow. With the introduction of CoffeeNet 365, R&M established a modern working environment with everything (intranet, document management, social communication, collaboration) in one place for a digitally efficient organization in Switzerland and abroad.

Challenge

R&M approached MondayCoffee to replace their on-premise SharePoint intranet with a modern, user-friendly platform with enhanced social communication features to foster internal communication and engagement. The tools in place were challenging employees in their daily work. It took users too much time to find the right information, connect with the right people, and collaborate with each other.

Furthermore, R&M was investing in its globalization and the subsidiaries abroad needed to be well integrated in their information and communication flow to guarantee optimal collaboration between teams.

With a growing organization, sustainable knowledge management also became a critical issue. The exchange of knowledge had to be faster, knowledge owners easily accessed, and their knowledge stored in a secure and user-friendly way.

R&M also wanted to allow their employees to work from everywhere and with any device. This was not possible with the old infrastructure and had to be changed with the introduction of a digital workplace. The company had already switched to Skype for Business to improve communications and reduce costs. However, more needed to be done to create a more collaborative digital workplace.

Strategy

With the replacement of its outdated intranet and in parallel with the introduction of Skype for Business, R&M implemented Office 365 and MondayCoffee’s CoffeeNet 365, a comprehensive and fully integrated digital workplace solution. R&M names this new intranet “RACE,” standing for “R&M’s Advanced Communication & Collaboration Environment.”

RACE includes a classic intranet (based on SharePoint), a social enterprise network (Yammer), self-service collaboration with MondayCoffee’s template engine for improved collaboration in internal and mixed teams, a modern document management for a more efficient knowledge exchange, as well as a personal working space (OneDrive for Business). To speed up the process of finding information an efficient, platform-wide search engine is also included.

With RACE, employees can work together across teams and locations. At the click of a button, they can create predefined workspaces by choosing between project sites, workgroup sites, or meeting sites to manage projects, work together on specific topics, or run meetings in a more efficient way. Likewise, each department or location can create their site (based on a best-practice and standardized site template) to facilitate collaboration as a department or within a certain location and publish department or location specific information in a standardized and user-friendly way to the rest of the organization. All in one place. In every workspace users can with the click of a button call their colleagues, chat with each other, work on shared documents, and store all information in a standardized way to guarantee orientation across the platform. This new way of working allows employees to exchange ideas faster and on a single and central platform.

The solution was implemented with MondayCoffee’s proven methodology. After a condensed conceptual phase, the project team started with implementation pilots on the live system to foster user adoption right from the start and address issues in timely manner. After the pilot phase, R&M rolled the solution out independently from MondayCoffee and drove user adoption across the entire organization.

Results

R&M is pleased that the new platform supports the implementation of the company’s strategy and their goal of creating a Modern, attractive and high performing working environment. RACE has optimized know-how exchange, collaboration and set-up of different networks of employees and partners worldwide.

The solution provides users with quick and easy access to company information from everywhere at any time and on any device. It has also simplified everyday work for employees and teams and given them more innovation power thanks to well connected, flexible and agile teams. In addition, RACE has improved employee engagement and satisfaction as the right information is accessible to the right people at the right time.

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