Client story Bugaboo future-proofs its business thanks to IDW™
By Insight UK / 24 Aug 2020 / Topics: Microsoft 365
By Insight UK / 24 Aug 2020 / Topics: Microsoft 365
Over twenty years ago, Dutch firm Bugaboo revolutionised prams. Having focused upon creating purely functional prams, they overhauled their design process, to create a series of stylish, innovative stroller solutions.
An appearance on popular TV series Sex and the City boosted Bugaboo’s profile further, with celebrities appearing in the media with the strollers and designers wanting to partner with Bugaboo for unique collaborations. All of this, combined with its high quality, ensured that Bugaboo prams had potential to grow into a worldwide success very quickly. The products are now available in over fifty countries and Bugaboo has hired over 1,100 employees worldwide.
Much has changed over the years at Bugaboo. The company has grown incredibly quickly and expanded into several countries, along with a number of new shops, a factory in China plus a business takeover. These changes had an impact on the IT requirements, as Bugaboo continues to grow in size and popularity. In order to continue to ensure employees remain connected and can easily communicate and collaborate, both now and in the future, Bugaboo sought a solution to replace its existing intranet. The solution would also need to empower employees worldwide to work together effectively and keep the IT environment manageable.
Having built a strong relationship with Bugaboo over the years, Insight was well-positioned to understand the needs of the client. Following detailed discussions, Insight suggest the ideal solution to their challenge - Insight Digital Workspace™(IDW). Based on Microsoft Office 365, IDW is full of useful applications to make working more efficient and easier. It gives the IT administrator of an organisation a clear tool in order to monitor and optimise a number of internal and external applications as well as facilitate employee collaboration.
“IDW provided my employees with personalised dashboards, allowing them access through a single sign-on to news, information, applications, tasks and areas relevant to their work. It satisfied the requirement the team were looking for.”
Dennis Eijkelkamp, Executive Premium Account Manager at Insight Enterprises Netherlands
Bugaboo instantly realised the added value of introducing IDW to their organisation, but also wanted to work on a solution which allowed teammates globally to seamlessly collaborate. Insight assessed what Bugaboo already had in place and discussed where Bugaboo wanted to go as an organisation, providing the IT support required to achieve their goal.
Together with Bugaboo, Insight inventoried the IT facilities of Bugaboo’s worldwide offices and worked on a phased plan of approach to set up the desired, optimised modern and secure IT environment. The older on-premise SharePoint environment, the use of Office 365 by some of the offices and the use of Microsoft Exchange by others, were all examined.
In order to be able to leverage IDW as fully as possible, a new online SharePoint environment was selected as the central system. Here, the main focus was on improving and migrating the existing SharePoint platform and the corresponding workflows. In doing so, the team looked carefully at what needed to be transferred and in exactly what (new) form. A workspace where everything is in the cloud also requires the necessary additional knowledge of the employees themselves.
“Insight provided Bugaboo managers with workshops and training courses to understand the new system. This empowered Bugaboo managers further as they were able to share this knowledge with the rest of their department, ensuring a smooth roll-out of the system. This was critical to the project as something as simple as the G-drive no longer exists in the new environment, similarly, sharing documents via email is also no longer necessary.
“Insight worked closely with the team to understand our vision and plan how IT would best support our organisational objectives, keeping our employees informed of changes which were to be made.”
Bert Groot-Hulze, Global ICT Manager at Bugaboo
The duration of this project took six months, from the initial conversation through to completion. In that time, the SharePoint migration was performed and more than 850 workspaces were equipped with IDW and OneDrive.
Bugaboo realised how migrating to the cloud had positively impacted upon their organisation. This benefitted the IT department as the same technology is now used consistently around the world. This is also convenient when Bugaboo adds a new office to the organisation, as retrieving data securely is now in full function.
“Bugaboo’s employees quickly experienced the benefits of their single sign-on online workspace. In particular, it provided them with secure access anytime, anywhere to important business information, the latest versions of documents and access to colleagues, using any imaginable device. This is now possible without first connecting to a VPN and that works really well.”
Dennis Eijkelkamp, Executive Premium Account Manager at Insight Enterprises Netherlands
This new way of collaborating means that all documents can be securely stored online via Teams or OneDrive. Although new ways of collaboration can take organisations a while to adjust to, Bugaboo employees are thriving in their new environment and there have been lots of examples of positive collaboration, particulalry with the ability to log in via smartphones directly.
Bugaboo has future-proofed its business after the phased approach of this first project, thanks to the acquisition of IDW and the corresponding changes. In the meantime, work is continuing on a second project, in which the new infrastructure will be fine-tuned further, more complex workflows will be addressed and underlying processes will be optimised.
“The way Insight handled everything ensured a flawless adoption. I am very proud of our collaboration.”
Bert Groot-Hulze, Global ICT Manager at Bugaboo
Bugaboo had been looking to replace their existing intranet so that they could extend their internal communication capabilities and further collaboration. They were seeking to do this in a way that the IT department could effectively manage the system.
The pieces of the puzzle fell immediately into place during an introduction with the new Insight account manager. A new online SharePoint environment was chosen and more than 850 workspaces were equipped with Insight Digital Workspace™ (IDW) and OneDrive.
