Microsoft 365 Migration- Manufacturing Case Study
Background
East Penn is a private, family-owned lead battery manufacturer with 11,000 employees across the globe. Like other organizations, East Penn was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to enable cloud technologies for remote back-office while sustaining operations in their facilities. The company chose to migrate from on-premises infrastructure with Office 2010 to Microsoft 365, inclusive of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams. The change impacts facing end users were compounded by an entrenched culture in the assembly-line user base that was uncomfortable with certain types of technology.
Approach
Seer proposed an engagement program built around Microsoft best practices and organizational change management. This program began with a virtual envisioning session for business stakeholders to assess the challenges faced by the organization, demonstrate the capabilities of the Microsoft 365 platform, generate use case solutions, and define a vision for the project’s success. To better understand the current state of the assembly-line employees, Seer developed an online survey to baseline their existing technology skills, rate learning preferences, and capture comments and testimonials. These outputs led Seer to propose plans for user adoption, customized communications, and formalized training that were approved by the client.
Solution
From the baseline survey, Seer developed a tiered learning path with three levels: Basic covering foundational concepts for computers, web browsers, and Office apps; Intermediate introducing the new tools and apps; and Advanced diving deeper into enhanced workflows. To drive consumption of these learning paths, Seer created customized communications, training artifacts, and a centralized SharePoint site called Learning Pathways to house all user-facing project materials, a training calendar, and links to Microsoft help content. The training plan included multiple modalities such as self-paced videos, quick start guides, webinars, 1:1 sessions with a trainer, and white glove support for executives and their assistants. Central to the entire adoption effort was a champions program that built a local network of over 50 Microsoft SMEs to informally mentor and support their peers at each working site.
Results
The East Penn project accomplished the following:
- Delivered webinars to 10,000 employees
- Reduced help desk escalation tickets by 65% over the Office 2010 migration project
- Increased active usage from 10% to 65% in a 90-day period as users adopted Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Exchange Online
- Earned employee satisfaction ratings of 90% (4.8 out of 5 stars) via survey.