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SoftwareOne case study
How SoftwareOne helped a major telecoms provider find the right path to seamless M365 adoption
A leading telecommunications company in Qatar redefined Microsoft 365 roll-out through strategic user research and change management, using the ADKAR model to improve communication and drive technology adoption.
When an organisation invests in a technology to help people do their jobs, people expect the initiative to be successful. But what if the rollout fails to deliver the expected value?
An international telecommunications company with operations spanning North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia had plans for further expansion and rapid offer development. However, to meet their business needs, they required a well-designed and secure, digital workplace .
For this reason, the organisation provided its employees with a full Microsoft 365 suite, hoping it would solve all the challenges they had faced during the pandemic and beyond.
- Client
- International telecommunications company
- Industry
- Media and communications
- Services
- Digital Workplace Adoption Services
- Country
- Qatar
Struggling with low technology adoption and unmet expectations
The project stakeholders knew that the adoption of the technology was almost as significant as the deployment itself.
They decided to support the process and introduce employees to the new solutions with a digital workplace campaign that included a communication plan and self-paced training modules.
A few months after the implementation, the company did not see any significant changes in employee work styles and habits. Adoption of Microsoft 365 services was low, there was no visible return on investment and expectations remained unmet.
To improve the situation, the client asked SoftwareOne to help find the recipe for a successful and tailored adoption plan.
Increasing the chances for success with the right approach
SoftwareOne’s consultants focused on understanding the current work culture and identifying the challenges to help employees adopt the new solutions.
With the main objective in mind, SoftwareOne developed a unique approach that combined the adoption and change management best practices with in-depth user research.
The scope covered SoftwareOne’s key adoption principles: Business Scenarios, Training, Communication, Measures, Sponsorship and Ambassadors, supplemented by in-depth interviews with business representatives.
They aimed to reveal their current working habits with a series of questions, including:
- What tools and Microsoft 365 applications do you use, and how often?
- What do you like and dislike about them? And why?
- How do you communicate and collaborate with other team members?
- What do you remember about the company’s digital workplace awareness campaign?
The answers helped SoftwareOne's consultants gain valuable insights, understand the root cause, and lay a solid foundation for the next steps. Although initially underestimated by the client, the interviews proved to be a game-changer.
Ultimately, the research convinced the project stakeholders that a successful technology deployment must start with a careful implementation plan and evaluated at all stages.
If you are unsure where to start – do the research
Interviews with key staff from different departments revealed how they had used the services to date and identified a number of mistakes made in the initial implementation of the solutions.
Deployment gaps included:
- Inefficient communication delivered through inappropriate channels
- Lack of communication and collaboration policies to help employees adapt
- Incorrect assumptions about the employee skills
Without the research, the project team would have spent much more time trying the source of the problems. Fortunately, once the barriers were identified, SoftwareOne was able to move on to the next phase of the project.
As SoftwareOne wanted to make the adoption process intuitive and smooth for employees, the ADKAR Model was chosen to handle the change management.
In addition, by gaining greater insight into employee perspectives, SoftwareOne was able to analyse the information gathered using the Atomic UX Research framework, providing a deeper understanding of the user experience and facilitating more informed decision making.
A solution that addresses the real needs
With the expert insights in hand, the company received an action plan backed by hard facts and practical recommendations on what and how to tackle the current state of adoption.
By breaking it down into categories that represented SoftwareOne’s principles and best practices, the telecom provider was able to seamlessly integrate SoftwareOne’s suggestions into their existing processes. This allowed immediate action to be taken to improve communication and implement effective training programmes, setting the initiative up for success from the outset.
In addition, SoftwareOne created a customised list of adoption KPIs that aligned with the organisation’s goals and identified business scenarios tomake the entire process practical and straightforward.
The list included metrics such as the number of active departmental teams, files shared through Microsoft Teams, and emails sent, that would help the company measure the results of the process, en they were on the right track, and reap the benefits of the modern workplace.
By understanding the employees perspective, our client was able to optimise the potential of its organisation with a set of change management best practices and methodologies.
As a result, the company is now taking full advantage of the new solution. At the same time, its employees can beconfident that future technology deployments will be just as successful thanks to the proven tools and processes now in place.
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