Longtime IBM Notes users at Canam Group Inc. wanted to work better, smarter and more efficiently, particularly given their scattered, global workforce. But life on the IBM Notes platform hindered efforts to build a cloud collaboration environment.
Since 1961, the Saint-Georges, Quebec-based company has specialized in designing integrated solutions and fabricating customized products for the North American construction industry. The organization is divided into three groups of products and services; buildings, structural steel and bridges. The corporation operates 25 plants across North America, employing more than 4,700 people in Canada, the United States, Romania and India.
That’s a lot of workers in many different locations and time zones. Using IBM Notes, Canam Group Inc. relied upon email attachments to share files across the company. However, these files were getting muddled. Too many versions existed, with too many people touching them and creating new versions.
The result? Workers were wasting time managing files. They needed the ability to create living documents that teams could open simultaneously to collaborate in real-time, no matter where they were located — or at what time of the day.
Google Workspace Streamlines Workflows and Reduces Costs
With such a scattered workforce, the company’s leaders knew they needed to streamline workflows and processes. They felt it was critical for all teams to work from a single source for document creation and process reviews. They also wanted to minimize costs.
Enter Onix and Google Workspace. Canam Group Inc. was interested in what Google Workspace could offer in terms of workplace collaboration, but the deal wasn’t yet signed, sealed and delivered.
Google Cloud reps brought Onix into the equation when they realized the company needed a large enterprise deployment of the leading, cloud-based workplace productivity tools suite. Onix is the partner that makes this happen for dozens of customers in Canada.
Audit Targets Google Workspace Strategy
To ensure that Google Workspace was a good fit for the client’s needs and environment, Onix first led the company through a technology evaluation, a must before any deployment.. During the audit, the Onix team examined the company’s current technical environment to understand how the organization was working. Also assessed was how much data including email and documents would need to be migrated for the deployment covering 2,500 users.
The audit also included the development of a plan about how the company would implement Google Workspace across all global users. Its change management strategy focused on using online and onsite training and adoption preparation initiatives to excite teams about the new cloud collaboration environment. These activities were divided into three phases focusing on different employee populations — core IT, early adopters and then the full suite for the rest of the organization’s new Google Workspace users.
From planning to full adoption, the entire project — took just six months, moving quickly from concept to Go Live. After Going Google so successfully by deploying Google Workspace, leadership at Canam Group Inc. is now exploring the benefits of migrating to Google Cloud in addition to further maximizing their current investment in Google Workspace.
