Music Industry Society Achieves Digital Harmony with M365

Envisioning a centralized communication and collaboration platform

GEMA and IT4IPM wanted a comprehensive communication and collaboration platform that would provide employees a modern digital workplace. Complexity had steadily grown because of diverse communication channels, and both companies saw the benefits of achieving a homogeneous IT landscape. Collaboration on a new standardized IT solution would improve communication, transparency, and connectivity, making both companies more attractive to potential applicants.

Based on its demonstrated cloud migration experience, GEMA and IT4IPM engaged SoftwareOne to support the project. Beyond pure M365 migration, security, compliance, and governance support were required. In addition, the team planned a customized adoption and change management concept to help increase employee acceptance of the new IT solution. SoftwareOne would provide comprehensive project management and its 365Simple service to round out the offer.

The seamless transition to M365

The clients chose Microsoft's M365 collaboration platform to take advantage of its extensive possibilities. However, a successful transition demanded careful planning by SoftwareOne's cloud experts for phased implementation. The team identified specific migration goals, requirements, and priorities while considering strategic organizational needs. An advanced cloud readiness check ensured that GEMA's and IT4IPM's IT environments were ready for the cloud move.

The complete project entailed six phases:

• Implementing a comprehensive communication solution: The new platform provides internet telephony via Microsoft Teams, including video, chat, and Teams Live Events. All conference rooms are fully equipped.
• Introduction of a central collaboration platform: OneDrive and SharePoint provide better document sharing and additional applications, including Forms, Planner, or Whiteboard, delivering collaboration and organizing functions.
• Replacement of previously used programs: Lifesize, Jabber, and WebEx have been standardized in Microsoft Teams solutions. All user data has been migrated from Google Workspace to OneDrive and SharePoint.
• Security & Compliance: Based on a security and compliance workshop, the team created a separate security concept incorporating defined governance guidelines for the entire company.
• Exchange Hybrid: Exchange enables the gradual migration of all email mailboxes to the cloud.
• Multi-device management: Microsoft Intune is now used to manage end devices such as PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Integrating "New Ways of Working" workstream has created a good basis for getting employees excited about collaboration. In addition, the well-considered use of resources creates sustainable values for cooperative collaboration within GEMA and IT4IPM.

— Martha Stritzel, Business analyst at IT4IPM GMBH

GEMA and the IT service provider IT4IPM have benefited from the complementary SoftwareOne services throughout the migration project.

• Comprehensive project management: Using a SoftwareOne central project manager enabled implementation of the digital transformation at a very high standard in both companies. In addition, the coordination and control of all tasks by an integrated management team successfully delivered the completed project within the planned time frame.
• Adoption & Change Management (ACM): The initial analysis phase transformed into a consulting and sparring approach throughout the project. This was successful across all implementation phases and milestones up to the end of the project. These measures realized a healthy awareness of the change and a high level of user acceptance. Topics included the development of the core change message, specification of target groups, action recommendations, guidelines for the "New Way of Working," and introduction of key user concepts. Strategically bundled under the aptly chosen name of "THE SOUND OF COLLABORATION / Together Digital,” the entire change communication was explained so all employees could understand and link to GEMA's corporate goals meaningfully. Further adjustments to the platform will be packaged in this initiative in the future for recognizability to promote resilience and willingness for workforce change.
• A final transition moved from ongoing project operations to ACM Managed Services support. Using defined principles of the "New Way of Working," the companies can maintain adoption rates after the project ends through further regular meetings that flexibly examine new feature updates and user management ideas.
• IT Campus training courses: A customized and sustainable training concept is planned to offer individual webinars, specially created learning videos, and videos integrated into the learning platform. These will provide users with timely knowledge to continue facilitating the changeover and arousing curiosity about the new solution.