What do you need to deploy Office 365 across hundreds of locations and thousands of users? Before you say “a stiff drink,” let's pause for some advice from someone who’s actually lived through the experience. Starting with a complex, disparate global network, the team at Kelly Services transformed it so they could bring the full Office 365 suite to users in 900 offices in 22 countries. Recently, the leader of that team took the time to describe the journey and share his advice in a webinar, which is now available on demand.
Kelly Services is a global leader in workforce solutions and staffing. At its core, Kelly Services is about connecting great companies to great employees. But in order to execute on that charter, the company came to the conclusion that it needed to get better at connecting its own people. That’s where Office 365 comes in. With global collaboration designated as a key corporate initiative, Office 365 was targeted for deployment across the organization.
Before Office 365 could transform employee productivity, the IT team, led by Robb Wilbur, Director of Global Networks and Telecom, found that they needed to transform the Kelly network. Why? Like many distributed organizations, the company’s network was based on a hub-and-spoke architecture. While this topology served them well in the past, things would have to change for Office 365.
Office 365 applications need fast connections and low latency to provide the best user experience, particularly for tools like Skype for Business and OneTeam, which were going to be essential to the company’s focus on collaboration. That’s why Microsoft recommends direct-to-internet connections for fast access to the Microsoft cloud. These realities forced Robb and his team onto a journey of transformation that not only allowed him to scale Office 365 across all Kelly Services offices around the world but also reduced costs and drastically simplified the network.
To listen to the webinar and hear Robb’s expert advice on deploying Office 365, jump on over and give it a listen.
