BÜHLER GROUP: Creating a future-oriented working environment for a digitally efficient organization

Bühler is an internationally active Swiss technology group. As a global company with 13,000 employees in 140 countries, Bühler needed a single platform for information, communication, and collaboration among its workforce and with external stakeholders.

MondayCoffee's cloud software, which intelligently combines Microsoft's most important technologies on a user-friendly and standardized platform, enabled the company to access, share and distribute all relevant information and knowledge - anywhere and anytime. Global teams can work more efficiently and improve collaboration with customers, partners and suppliers. Bühler has created a future-proof working environment for a digitally efficient organization.

REICHLE & DE-MASSARI: Increased engagement and innovation power with the implementation of CoffeeNet 365

Reichle & De-Massari AG has been developing and producing cabling solutions for high-end communication networks since 1964. With high product quality and innovative, future-oriented system design, the company ensures future-proof networks and long-term investment security. R&M is the market leader in Switzerland and one of the top players in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

To replace the SharePoint intranet on site with a modern, user-friendly platform with improved social communication options and thus promote internal communication and commitment, R&M decided to implement the CoffeeNet 365 collaboration solution.

RHOMBERG BAU: Family-owned construction company uses Microsoft 365 to unlock its digital potential

Rhomberg Bau GmbH, part of a fourth-generation family-owned group, has started its journey of digitization. MondayCoffee, a trusted Microsoft Gold Partner, is supporting Rhomberg Bau on this important project, helping them take the fast track wherever possible to enable Rhomberg’s stakeholders to experience the benefits of digitization.

For Rhomberg, MondayCoffee combined Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Azure. Using Microsoft PowerApps, Power BI, Flow, SharePoint lists, Dynamics CRM, and Outlook, three key processes of Rhomberg were automated, simplifying collaboration, reducing time expenditure, and increasing transparency.

Challenge

Rhomberg Bau GmbH, is organized in several business areas, united under a common strategy to improve collaboration among them. As a result, the company moved to the cloud, installed a Microsoft Office 365 tenant and replaced some IT legacy systems with Microsoft’s standard tools.

To make collaboration happen, people need to change their habits. Together with Rhomberg Bau, MondayCoffee worked on that cultural change following a set of rules:

• Files are only stored once.

• Projects are created only once in the system, even if several business areas are working on it. (In the past, each area had their own separated project area.)

• Transparency with regards to the progress of projects must be increased.

• Processes and structures must be standardized and visualized in a clear and simple way in the system. Their application becomes less dependent on the individual person in charge.

In this collaboration with Rhomberg Bau, MondayCoffee tapped into the potential of unifying old IT systems, that have been managed differently in each business area, and making them more efficient through automation.

Strategy

Through workshops, MondayCoffee demonstrated the potential of combining the three main components of Office 365, Dynamics CRM, and Azure. Together with various stakeholders from Rhomberg Bau, MondayCoffee conceptualized a suitable architecture and approach for launching a series of dedicated Business Apps on top of its new Microsoft platform with a step-by-step development path. MondayCoffee has launched the following Business Apps in pilot testing for Rhomberg:

Construction Defects App: Built to simplify the record (including uploading of smartphone pictures), classification, and tracking of construction defects.

In construction projects, classification and tracking of construction defects are the biggest drivers of cost and deadline overruns, which is why a simplified recording and tracking process is important to the company. Furthermore, this app allows the company to rate their suppliers in terms of construction quality.

Dynamic Storage App: Built to dynamically create SharePoint site structures to save project-related documents in one single place – based on business partners involved (according to the CRM project entries). For big construction projects, it is key that all parties involved store and find important documents intuitively without getting lost in complex filing hierarchies.

Building Documentation App: Built to improve communication with client stakeholders on a project’s progress. The app allows all parties to easily upload and send pictures and plans of the building site and post news about the progress.

To develop the apps, MondayCoffee used the following Microsoft tools: PowerApps, Power BI, Flow, SharePoint lists, Dynamics CRM, and Outlook Online.

All apps are currently being used in a pilot phase by key users, who have been trained accordingly. A full-scale roll-out is planned for the calendar year 2019, while further apps and improvements are expected to come on an ongoing basis.

Results

With all the apps developed and launched with Rhomberg – on top of the new platform – the automation of small tasks has improved and simplified cross-team collaboration. Apart from time savings, the organization gains more transparency and higher quality on business relevant workflows.

Getting the organization to experience the new working environment and directly benefiting from it, means taking giant steps in the digital and cultural transformation of the group. Already, the key users are actively asking to roll-out the apps in other areas and develop new ones.

EMMI GROUP: Focusing on what matters most!

The company Emmi is Switzerland's largest diary processor.

Everywhere and anytime. This is what many people expect at work. Employees also work increasingly with colleagues and externals without sitting anywhere close to them. However, it has become crucial to collaborate efficiently, easily and in a professional manner to achieve the defined objectives. A case in point is the introduction of a company-wide ERP system. 

Lukas Fischer, project manager in the Corporate Development team at Emmi, Switzerland's largest dairy processor, was part of the successful implementation of their new ERP system based on SAP between 2012 and 2017. The certainty that Emmi would not be able to deal without an integrated ERP system was matched with equally large respect: this was a huge project with many unknown factors at the start. 

Lukas Fischer implemented, with the help of EmmiNet, a new ERP system at Emmi.

"Every core process is affected by the introduction of such a system: countless stakeholders, countless meetings, and a never-ending number of new people who have to be onboarded and get involved as quickly as possible," explains Lukas Fischer the situation. “How can we make sure that everyone in the project team is connected intelligently and that we do not have to spend too much time with administration and IT issues?” These were the questions the project team had right from the beginning."

Efficient collaboration – agile progress 

Questions that were easy to answer at Emmi. As early as 2009, Emmi started to facilitate the company-wide collaboration across its various businesses. "We wanted to enable our employees to become more efficient and agile in their collaboration. Everyone had to be able to access relevant information and existing knowledge quicker and more effectively, as well as to communicate and collaborate digitally with all involved parties, from within the company and with externals. That was the goal. 

EmmiNet - the name of the SharePoint-based solution at Emmi - crystallized as a future-oriented and sustainable platform. Emmi’s operating system was already Microsoft Office at that time, and that had to remain unchanged. Hence, a professional Microsoft-compatible platform had to be found to prepare the company for its digital transformation. 

Every core process is affected by the introduction of an ERP system. Thanks to EmmiNet all involved people in the project were intelligently connected with each other.

No file shares, less emails 

"CoffeeNet, the collaboration solution by MondayCoffee, sparked our interest not just of its original name," the application managers summed up. "We were presented an out-of-the-box and user-friendly platform that allowed us to work more efficiently and effectively, from a collaboration, communication and an enterprise-wide document management point of view. That, of course, was exactly what we needed”, Lukas Fischer recalls. 

File shares and thousands of emails with attachments were gradually becoming something of the past. Needless to say, the project workers needed time to get used to the new way of working. However, they quickly familiarized themselves with the benefits of this collaboration platform and made good use of it. 

The concept and implementation phases of the ERP project were entirely handled over EmmiNet. All project members can access the various documents in virtual workspaces, working together at the same time and from any device. Project updates or meeting notes can be placed at the same location, where the task lists and documents are also stored, "Lukas Fischer explains. "This has helped us to focus on what really mattered." 

The rollout of the ERP project across the entire group will also take place on the EmmiNet as it allows our international colleagues to access relevant information and data quickly and easily. 

Ongoing development 

For Thomas Pizzolato the implementation of CoffeeNet is much more of a business project requiring intense change management.

In parallel to the ERP rollout, Emmi's application managers developed the EmmiNet further and also switched from a on-premise to an online solution, based on SharePoint Online / Office 365. "We focused on user-friendliness, modern and intuitive design, and a strong search function", explains the SharePoint team leader at Emmi, Thomas Pizzolato. 

"We handed over the responsibility for the daily administration of EmmiNet to the business. In other words, they had to decide what kind of workspaces they wanted to use for what kind of topic and with whom”, Thomas Pizzolato summarizes the most relevant change that came with the new development. That’s why adopting the new way of working away from file shares and towards SharePoint technology is not an IT project, but much rather a business project with a large change component. "But once the users are familiar with the advantages, they don’t’ want to go back.” Precisely because one can focus on what matters most!