Citywide transforms communications to increase collaboration & flexibility

About the client 

Citywide Service Solutions is owned and operated by the City of Melbourne, Australia, to meet the service needs of local government, commercial, and public sectors for infrastructure, waste management, and open spaces.

The challenge

Working with a wide range of partners and customers, Citywide wanted to improve its services’ flexibility and simplify interactions to enhance customer’s experience. The company had already started its cloud journey by using office applications and email communication in Office 365. These had enabled its employees to work and communicate more efficiently. However, there was still an expensive and inefficient legacy system in communications.

Using Skype for Business On-Premises had limited Citywide’s collaboration and federation capabilities. It required hosting local legacy infrastructure with high costs, heavy administration efforts, and inadequate external support services. Focusing on its digital transformation strategy, Citywide decided to move to a 100% cloud solution with Microsoft Teams to improve the communication service’s quality and reliability. As a company with numerous branch offices and many outdoor work assignments, Microsoft Teams offered the anywhere/anytime flexibility necessary for smooth and efficient teamwork as well as high-quality communication with partners and customers

The solution

The decision to move from Skype for Business to Teams had several advantages. As a cloud-based communication and collaboration platform, Teams provides modern communication tools and enhanced collaboration features, a complete new approach for the company. However, another advantage became obvious as Citywide confronted the COVID-19 pandemic. When restrictions required working remotely, Office 365 and Teams helped 600 employees to become effective remote workers.

Together with SoftwareONE experts, the Citywide team quickly developed a step-by-step implementation plan, including extensive assurance testing.

The teams were tremendously effective. A project like this is never a one-person show. It takes collaboration and a range of expertise. Together, we had all that we needed.

– Parry Singh, Head of IT Operations,Citywide Service Solutions

User adoption training helped facilitate a smooth and fast start with Teams after a prompt cutover. Instead of the planned face-to-face engagement, training was delivered remotely because of COVID-19 restrictions. SoftwareONE used Teams for training on Teams – a perfect introduction.

People like it. During COVID-forced remote meetings, Teams has done wonders for us,

– said Singh.

The new platform immediately impacted Citywide's office workers from high-quality video and voice calls to working and collaborating on documents in real-time. A new level of flexibility, efficiency, and work productivity increased collaboration among colleagues and customers. Even with COVID-19 restrictions, SoftwareONE’s Adoption and Change Management had helped to create the basis for a smooth, fast, and productive transition from Skype to Teams.

Citywide assured high-quality and reliable communication and collaboration resources by engaging SoftwareONE's Managed Services for comprehensive operational and support services that significantly reduce the burden on internal IT staff. A dedicated support team cares for incident resolution, service and change requests, as well as user onboarding/offboarding. SoftwareONE’s Managed Infrastructure provides operational support and manages the complete communications environment for Citywide.