In late March, a few weeks after the authorities pulled the emergency brake and closed schools and recommended everyone who could work at home, Finance Minister Jan Tore Sanner presented the business compensation scheme at a press conference.
Bits, the financial industry's infrastructure company, was heavily involved in establishing the scheme, together with DNB, the Tax Directorate, Finance Norway and a number of other suppliers and agencies. When the Compensation Scheme was launched three weeks later, around 200 people spread across the country, distributed across 12 different companies and government agencies, helped create the solution.
How was it possible for businesses that are rigged for traditional office work to coordinate and solve such a mega project from their home offices in just three weeks? In Bits, they have no doubt that part of the answer is Microsoft Teams. And it contributed to such high efficiency that it was not possible to carry out a single physical meeting.
Bits were well prepared
Bits as a company was established in 2016, but had 30 years of inheritance in the form of data files from various organizational units before them. When establishing the company, it was a major challenge to gather all these archives into a common SharePoint solution.
Last summer, when they received advice and help from us with the move to Microsoft 365 E5, the goal was to turn up security and get Azure information protection in place, the latest version of SharePoint and develop workflows, groups and routines related to this. . Teams came along as a bonus.
- The willingness to spend a lot of time traveling to meetings has definitely changed, says Eivind Gjemdal in Bits. (photo: Delta V)
- During the autumn, we had good experiences with chat and meetings at Teams, partly because we had also invested in a meeting room system that is part of a Teams resource. Then we had a maturation on it with Teams and learned a lot from Braathe through the winter, about how we could include SharePoint, create channels and set up different Teams, etc., says subject manager Brynjel Johnsen in Bits.
Thus, Bits was well prepared for what Teams use exploded in the home offices on March 12.
Read more about all the opportunities that lie in Teams.
- Until then, we had mostly been sitting in the office, and occasionally had someone in the home office. Suddenly everyone went home, and we were given a completely different need for a platform to collaborate. In connection with the pandemic and the compensation scheme, we really saw how this could be exploited, adds CEO Eivind Gjemdal.
Invited guest users
- When we became the project office for the compensation scheme, it only took 10 minutes before teams were set up for external and internal, with the sharing of documents. It went very fast. We knew how to solve it, and didn't have to open the toolbox to look for solutions, says Gjemdal
- Actors who had not yet used Teams were set up as a guest user with us and used our Teams to hold meetings. They had a developer channel where developers sat and worked, and then there were developers across organizations. Meetings, morning meetings and development meetings were held. There were long and short meetings at our Teams, because they didn't have Teams themselves yet, Johnsen says.
He points out the work on the compensation scheme as particularly interesting because most did not know each other before, but still cooperated very well.
- We also had a closing party, of course at Teams, where we sat on a Saturday night and summarized, because it was not allowed to meet physically at that time, he says.
Johnsen is the one who works most closely with us. In addition to Microsoft services, we provide both PC operation, Internet lines, network as a service and setup of WiFi, and secure line against servers that Bits has in our data center.
- In such a situation, we are vulnerable to technical errors, but we have had a supplier that has had faultless production. Sharepoint and Teams have worked without errors, adds Gjemdal.
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Value creation and productivity in the future
Gjemdal is committed to bringing the good experiences of digital interaction during the pandemic further into the future and continue to exploit the potential of Teams.
- Through the corona pandemic, digital meetings and digital interaction platforms have received a huge boost, because the value is so clearly documented. It is seen that companies around the country, including our industry, have managed to maintain productivity, despite the fact that we were unable to meet physically. The reason for this is good IT tools in the form of document sharing and a platform for interaction.
- I've had several meetings with others in the banking and finance industry in recent weeks, and everyone reflects on the same. Think about what we have learned about digital interaction and efficiency in the digital channel. The willingness to spend a lot of time traveling to meetings has certainly changed, he says.
Gjemdal perceives that the digital meetings are often better agenda-driven and more clearly summarized. At the same time, he is aware that some aspects of physical meetings are lost, since you lose some of the facial expressions of those who participate, and it is not as easy to pick up if a participant is sitting and pondering and not participating.
"It's still important to meet physically from time to time, but maybe you can take two out of three meetings digitally because you save so much time on it," says Gjemdal.
- It worked fine. I'm just saying where I want a WiFi point, and they'll fix it, says Brynjel Johnsen about working with us. (Photo: Delta V)
He is aware that the company he leads has been through a very fast digital transformation when it comes to interaction:
- To reach the level of digital interaction we have today, I think would have taken 5-10 years in a normal situation. Now we have done it in three months instead, he concludes.
