Three is one of the United Kingdom’s fastest-growing networks, covering more than 97 percent of the population. They were the first network to introduce unlimited data and offer 4G at no extra cost. But to continue delivering a high-quality, reliable mobile experience to their customers while innovating across our services, Three needed to make significant changes to their business, including rebuilding their entire IT infrastructure. Three kicked off a digital transformation in their workplace by choosing Microsoft Office 365.
Long-distance teamwork is key to sharing information and ideas across Three’s distributed organisation. Three have offices in Maidenhead, Glasgow, and Reading, along with 324 retail stores and offshore offices in New Zealand. To keep up with the swift pace of innovation and stay ahead of competitors, Three needed to better connect their employees and adopt an agile methodology. To do this, they introduced Microsoft Teams, the chat-based workspace in Office 365, and the concept of circles—groups of five to nine people working in virtual teams across the company. Each circle uses Microsoft Teams as a hub for virtual teamwork. Today, employees across all our locations work together more efficiently using Microsoft Teams in conjunction with Microsoft Planner. We use Microsoft Teams to make our teams more productive, and Three use Planner to streamline each circle’s projects.
By bridging geographies and departments, each customisable workspace in Microsoft Teams acts as a foundation for a more agile organization. Microsoft Teams works across devices, including mobile phones, so all employees can participate in conversations anytime, anywhere. Three started by creating circles within their People Team—which includes employees from their human resources, property and facilities departments—and assigning quarterly outcomes to each circle. These circles collaborate to improve organisational agility, and the glue that keeps them all working together productively is Microsoft Teams.
Three’s use of Microsoft Teams has also accelerated the adoption of Office 365 services across the organization. Microsoft SharePoint Online team sites, OneNote notebooks and Power BI dashboards are built into each Microsoft Teams workspace, so people intuitively use them. It’s a totally different approach to rolling out technology—what used to be an IT-driven exercise is now happening more organically, and they are seeing the dividends in improved productivity.
With the introduction of Office 365, Three have also eliminated the need for third-party products in our organisation. Three had people using Slack, Trello and Google Hangouts, but they can now offer a suite of interoperable productivity tools that make it easier to get work done—Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner and Skype for Business Online—all within the context of Office 365 and our more agile workplace. Three trust the advanced security capabilities built into Office 365 and Microsoft Azure Active Directory, so they are comfortable knowing that their company data is more secure.
Three has an ambitious, transformational plan to deliver what our customers need. With empowered, agile and connected employees, we are well on our way to achieving our goal.
https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/06/21/mobile-provider-three-calls-on-office-365-to-support-workplace-digital-transformation/
