Microsoft 365 infrastructure projects can be complex. It’s very technical work with an added layer of a dynamic logistical juggle. The Office 365 Unification project that we completed for SEEK has been noted a great success in terms of project outcomes and workplace efficiencies. Here’s a snapshot of the project, but if you would like more about the possibilities for your organisation, get in touch today.
SEEK is a diverse group of companies across Asia Pacific unified under one umbrella. It’s overarching purpose is to help people live more fulfilling and productive working lives. As a market leader in employment and education, SEEK has a strong capability for insights into the future of work and online employment. SEEK is dedicated to ongoing investment into AI and technology.
Australian owned and operated, SEEK employs more than 1,000 people and over 10,000 people around the world.
A complex, time sensitive project
With a global presence and a diverse range of companies, SEEK faced a threat to the innovative and collaborative work culture they had grown.
Employee productivity was majorly affected by the inability to integrate Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, Nintex, PowerBI and other apps across the multiple Microsoft 365 tenancies. This led to a loss in efficiency and staff frustration across the Asia Pacific region.
The risks identified in the initial scoping of this project included downtime, loss of critical data such as calendar events and email, authentication break points, maintaining consistency in security policies across regions, and integration management (including 3rd party).
The impacts of increased work from home compounded the complexity of the challenge. Upwards of 1000 users laptops would need to be reconfigured, with no disruption to their work.
A unification strategy between regions to help effective and efficient collaboration
SEEK engaged Propelle to create and embark on a significant infrastructure change management strategy. The aim was clear. Transform the disjointed employee user experience to a unified workplace and regain compromised efficiencies.
The strategy would have far reaching impacts on all areas of the business. The O365 migration was a core piece of a wider strategy, with approximately 10 domains requiring staged migrations.
After identifying all key dependencies across both regions, a decision was made to merge the Asia Microsoft 365 tenant into the ANZ instance.
Maintaining system, information, and service quality were key dependencies throughout the duration of the project, and beyond. An ambitious time frame of completion in 6 months was set.
Setting a precedent in remote delivery
The benefits of the migration quickly became obvious. The simplification of the SEEK Microsoft 365 infrastructure enabled improved business reporting, automation, and communication.
Streamlined workflows mean staff across the regions have greater empowerment to understand where they sit within the organization. There is more clarity on how to remain productive while working within global, cross functional, and multidisciplinary teams.
Leadership at SEEK were able to realize some unexpected benefits from the migration. Gaps in knowledge and understanding across all levels of staff on how to use Microsoft 365 functionality came to light. This has led to opportunities for better onboarding and more specific training have been identified.
A successful, minimal downtime staged migration was completed within the 6-month timeframe. This project sets a precedent, proving that small, agile teams can successfully deliver large scale projects for multinational organizations remotely.
The success of the SEEK migration project was in no small part due to the enthusiasm and drive from the customer to solve complex challenges. The agility of the Propelle team ensures minimum disruption and low organizational impact, which is key to the Propelle method.
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