Business Situation
Countless people around the world fuel their day with a cup of coffee. During challenging times, the comfort of this daily routine is essential. The international coffee company, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), believes it’s amazing what can happen over a cup of coffee, and through its portfolio of global jewels and household names, it unlocks those possibilities in more than 100 countries around the world.
When the COVID-19 crisis hit, this mission remained as important as ever. JDE was forced to quickly adapt so that its workforce remained connected and its business continued, ensuring a constant flow of coffee to consumers across the globe. The sudden and sustained need to run the business remotely meant that JDE had to quickly migrate more than 14,000 associates from Skype for Business onto Microsoft Teams. Accenture and Avanade – a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft – were the natural choice to help.
"This project was a combination of technical know-how and kicking open the door. When we’re in high-pressure situations where we need to do something impossible, we turn to Accenture and Avanade."
Solution
Accenture, Avanade and JDE’s teams kicked off the rapid migration with a full week of virtual workshops with key functional experts around the world. This process was used to guide the company through the strategy, technical details and potential challenges of migrating thousands of associates onto a new platform in a short amount of time. Because of physical distancing regulations and work-from-home orders, the entire project – from kickoff to going live – had to be done remotely. During preparations for the migration to Teams, Avanade and JDE collaborated on a comprehensive, virtual change management program to ensure its people were comfortable using the new tool. This included:
- A dedicated SharePoint site was built to house FAQs, tips and tricks, one pagers and other helpful materials created in 11 local languages so that all associates were getting the same information.
- 150 JDE “champions” – associates with existing Microsoft 365 and Teams expertise – from IT, communications and HR were assigned to help colleagues get familiar with the tool.
- Remote training sessions were held both globally and locally via Teams.
Results
Three weeks later, nearly 85% of JDE’s associates were migrated to Teams, while the remaining users adopted the tool shortly after. Within a few weeks of activation, associates had already conducted more than 82,400 video calls.
While the technology is so often the focus of these projects, this initiative was about people and responding to their needs – keeping JDE associates safe and connected. By working together in multidisciplinary teams, JDE hasn’t missed a step in its mission to provide “a coffee for every cup” at a time when people need it most.
Learn more about how Avanade can help you transform your workplace experience with Microsoft Teams.
JDE accelerates its move to remote working solution
Avanade spoke to Alexander Min, CIO at JDE and Michael Orr, Head of Communications at JDE to learn about their experience