Client story Insight helps Borealis with Microsoft Teams adoption
By Insight Editor / 26 Sep 2022
By Insight Editor / 26 Sep 2022
Borealis is European market leader in the petrochemical industry. Their activities include the production of base chemicals, fertilizers and mechanical recycling of plastics. Headquartered in Vienna, the company has nearly 7,000 employees in more than 120 countries.
When Borealis decided to switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams, they asked Insight for support with communication and change management.
Skype for Business was well established for internal meetings at Borealis. But with the sudden switch to remote work, the company was intrigued by the many features of Microsoft Teams.
Initially, they decided to open up their Teams environment without training. Many employees seized the opportunity to start working with the tool. But to support collaboration in the new hybrid world, it quickly became clear that more guidance and change management would be required.
In addition, Borealis wanted to create a champions network – a group of employees who are passionate about learning how technology like Microsoft 365 can support their work and sharing their learnings with colleagues.
When you want employees to adopt a new tool, they must first understand how it will support them and why this change is important to the company. Therefore, Insight helped Borealis develop an adoption strategy. Within the ADKAR framework (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability & Reinforcement), Insight’s change management consultants delivered communication materials and advice to accelerate the adoption of Teams.
Central to this project was the creation of a champions community. Thanks to Insight’s extensive experience with these networks, Borealis was able to train a group of employees on how to use the many features of Teams. They learned, for example, how to create breakout rooms or send a survey during a meeting. These new ‘experts’ then passed on their knowledge through cross-pollination.
To make users aware of the move to Microsoft Teams, Insight also introduced the Skype for Business Interop Policy. This feature provided notifications for people who were still working in Skype.
Thanks to these advanced change management efforts, Borealis’ 7,000 employees now understand the benefits of Teams and use the platform on a regular basis. For instance, while they used to share most documents through SharePoint, Teams has now become the central collaboration hub at Borealis.
Insight’s contribution to the project was completed in about two months, but now Borealis has the tools to continue their change journey. The champions network is still regularly consulted.
