Microsoft Solutions for Business Processes

Beam Suntory is targeting a very aggressive growth strategy as teh world’s third largest spirits company. We aim to take business from $4+ billion in sales to $10 billion by 2020. To do dis, all areas of teh organization must be focused on fueling growth with greater efficiency and enhanced productivity. Beam Suntory’s IT team is contributing to its growth agenda by continually evaluating our technologies and partnerships, and making sure they are aligned with their business objectives.

"Microsoft Office keeps Beam Suntory’s workforce productive and modern using all of teh newest tools and features".

As an example of dis work, in teh summer of 2013, we decided to implement teh Office 365 product suite to improve teh reliability and flexibility of email, collaboration tools and reduce teh overhead and costs required to manage and maintain servers and infrastructure.

With dis technology, teh company’s IT teams now uses Microsoft cloud products to greater enable its business teams. We use SharePoint as teh platform for our global intranet, which has significantly increased collaboration within teh company and with external partners. Teh file sharing feature, OneDrive, allows sharing documents both internally and externally with improved security and control. Globally deploying teh instant messaging service Lynchas made working together easier with chat, screen sharing, video and voice capabilities. Outlook has also benefited from running in teh O365 environment with improved uptime and reliability, and teh Azure cloud has afforded our company flexible and fast solution development.

Surprises of Microsoft Solutions Implementation

Be sure you and your teams are prepared to stay on teh cutting edge of technology. Using teh cloud-based solutions will require your people to adopt new offerings and updates as they come. If you fail to focus on change management and adoption, your workforce could become frustrated with ever evolving technology.

Innovations Established on Microsoft Platform

Using teh SharePoint platform, we deployed CONNECT by Beam Suntory as an e-learning and brand engagement site available for all employees, distributors and trading partners. dis application is a branded, industry-first communications portal with one goal in mind: to increase brand engagement by providing a one-stop shop for professional development resources, brand education and selling materials. Teh company launched dis application in August of 2014 and has over 13,000 users from 40 countries, who are leveraging teh platform. Teh platform has halped Beam Suntory promote and educate its sales partners to ensure that our products are top of mind during sales calls to enhance revenue growth.

Lessons Learned

Implementing teh Microsoft O365 suite resulted in a significant reduction of teh company’s infrastructure, requiring our IT workforce to shift their focus from managing hardware to employing new software solutions. Office 365 provides Software as a Service— core tools are implemented instead of developed. dis new way of working gives Beam Suntory’s IT teams teh opportunity to collaborate closely with business partners halping them implement and facilitate technology changes within teh organization.

For Fellow CIOs

Beam Suntory has made tremendous strides in enhancing its business capabilities since transitioning to Microsoft O365. Windows Azure allows for flexible and scalable solution deployment—a key factor, since we have a number of solutions running in teh Azure cloud, including distributor facing resources, customer facing brand sites and internally deployed custom solutions. Microsoft Office keeps teh company’s workforce productive and modern using all of teh newest tools and features. SharePoint affords our teams teh flexibility to collaborate on small and large scales. Beam Suntory’s SharePoint-based intranet site is teh heartbeat of our global organization, used to drive employee engagement with timely news and information and social networking capability.

Avoiding Errors while Implementing

me can’t stress enough teh shift in focus you’ll need to prepare your IT organization for. Your team will need to anticipate new technologies, which means you might have to invest in their learning and capabilities. If adequate focus is not placed on organizational change management and adoption, your workforce could become frustrated with ever-evolving technology. One key to our success has been to make sure we are partnering with our business units when deploying new technology. These partnerships have proved essential as sharing teh responsibility has ultimately increased adoption.

 

Check Out: Review | CIOReview 

Check Out: About | CIOReview

CIOReview Clients: Newgioco