Verband öffentlicher Verkehr (Association of Public Transport)
A modern collaboration environment from the Cloud with Microsoft 365 and Azure.
The Verband öffentlicher Verkehr (VöV) is the Swiss national umbrella organization of public transport companies. Its members include over 130 transport companies as well as around 180 companies from business and industry. In some areas (law, finance, IT, HR, communication, graphics and translation), VöV works together with the national public transport tariff organization Alliance SwissPass and the Swiss Cableways Association (SBS). The above-mentioned services are provided to Alliance SwissPass and SBS by the specialist departments of VöV. Thanks to this specialist pool system, the three organizations use synergies and benefit from a joint infrastructure. The association represents the interests of its members vis-à-vis politicians, authorities and third parties, and coordinates the transport companies in national tasks. VöV was founded as a cooperative in 1889 and is based in Bern.
Ultra-modern, location-independent workplace
Transparent costs
Initial situation
Because the current infrastructure – based on on-premise servers and rigid licensing structures – was not satisfactory, the infrastructure concept was rethought. Regarding servers, no new hardware was to be purchased and everything was to be migrated to the Cloud instead. In addition, a complete client management system was to be introduced.
When it came to software, VöV was also completely lacking a collaboration environment. For instance, it was previously not possible to work together on documents or share a screen view in a meeting. Communication took place mainly via email. VöV, together with Alliance SwissPass and SBS, wanted to have a shared cutting-edge working environment and thus be able to appear more modern and efficient.
Solution
The existing server landscape was consolidated and rebuilt in the Cloud on Microsoft Azure. In addition, the server infrastructure was extended by client management via Intune. The association now also benefits from mobile device management, which enables it to manage smartphones and tablets so as to ensure data integrity.
To evaluate the requirements to be met by a modern collaboration solution and to make an initial assessment, isolutions carried out a collaboration assessment together with the VöV, Alliance SwissPass and SBS. Subsequently, the implementation of Microsoft 365 was planned with a particular focus on SharePoint and Teams. The above-mentioned needs could be met without any problems thanks to the effective functionalities of SharePoint and Teams. Predefined templates now allow the association to create new work areas for collaboration quickly and easily. In addition, VöV and its partners benefit from a location-independent and state-of-the-art working environment with the latest collaboration technologies.
All of these implementations were accompanied by two training courses for power users. The rollout was also intensively supported by isolutions, including regular Q&A sessions. The remaining employees were trained in the use of the new tools by VöV and its partner associations. Governance was drawn up jointly in order to define consistent and clear guidelines for working with the new collaboration solution. Finally, user satisfaction was surveyed in a review workshop.
"The cooperation with isolutions was extremely pleasant; a goal-oriented and efficient interdisciplinary project team was quickly formed, which achieved the project goals at a very high quality and within the planned time and budget.
The focus on business needs and on the collaboration between our organizations with external contacts - as opposed to technology only - was extremely helpful, stimulating and exciting."
Carlo Zingg, Head of IT and Business Analysis, Member of the Executive Board VoeV
Benefits of the solution
- Consolidated IT environment
- Simplified operation of hardware and software
- A single toolset with Microsoft 365 instead of various isolated applications
- Standardzsed working methods between VoeV, Alliance SwissPass and SBS
- A modern workplace with the ability to work from anywhere and access documents at any time
