India Cements achieves zero downtime and saves upto 10 hours a week with ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace
The Company
India Cements is one of the leading cement manufacturing companies in India. With a strong presence in the southern and eastern parts of the country, it has a total production capacity of 15.5 million tonnes per annum. Established in 1946, the company has a rich history spanning more than 75 years, and it’s played a significant role in the growth and development of the Indian cement industry.
In addition to its strong presence in the cement industry, India Cements is actively involved in various social and community development initiatives. The company has set up schools, hospitals, and other facilities in the communities where it operates, providing education and healthcare services to the underprivileged. With its commitment to quality, sustainability with its green growth initiative, and social responsibility, India Cements continues to be a key player in India's growth story.
The challenges
For 15 years, India Cements relied on Lotus Notes as its primary mailing solution. While it initially met their needs, the company's rapid growth exposed significant challenges with this legacy system. As an on-premise solution, Lotus Notes struggled with scalability, making it difficult and costly to support an increasing number of users.
Maintaining and upgrading Lotus Notes demanded substantial IT resources for hardware maintenance, software updates, and system security, which diverted resources from strategic initiatives. It also lacked essential collaboration tools, offering only basic email functions without integrated options for file sharing or real-time collaboration. This limitation hindered productivity and led to information silos, where data was confined to individual users or departments. These challenges ultimately drove the company to seek a more robust, scalable, and integrated solution.
The solution
Faced with the challenges of their legacy mailing system, India Cements began evaluating modern communication and collaboration solutions, considering options from major providers such as Microsoft, Google, and ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾.
Throughout a comprehensive evaluation process spanning a year and a half, the company meticulously assessed the solution based on features like interface design, responsiveness, and menu layout. These features were evaluated to minimize disruption during the transition from their existing mailing solution.
Another major challenge that India Cements faced was migrating data from Lotus Notes, specifically NSF files, to the new cloud-based platform. At the time, no other mailing solution provider could offer a viable solution for migrating the NSF format files to their system.
×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace distinguished itself by providing a comprehensive tool specifically designed to address this challenge. With the help of the tool and the support team, they were able to export the NSF files easily, facilitating a seamless transition to the cloud-based platform. This capability played a pivotal role in the company's decision-making process, solidifying ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾'s position as the preferred choice among competitors.
On top of this, Microsoft and Google solutions were expensive. These providers also frequently increased their pricing, which complicated the company's budgeting and long-term planning. In contrast, ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace provided a flexible pricing plan, allowing the company to pay only for the features they actually used. This tailored approach was appealing because it offered cost-efficiency without sacrificing functionality. India Cements valued the ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ customer-centric service model, which perfectly aligned with their needs.
Migration to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace
The organization had over 800 users with mailboxes containing 15 GB of emails each, accumulated over 15+ years. To ensure a smooth and efficient migration, the IT team adopted a two-step approach:
1. Proof of concept for higher management
Recognizing the importance of user experience and buy-in from management, the IT team conducted a targeted migration of a smaller user group. They strategically chose 10 mailboxes belonging to senior management and migrated them to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace. This provided a hands-on experience for the decision-makers. They could directly interact with the new UI, explore the features, and assess its usability for their daily needs. Following higher management’s positive experience with ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace, the IT team gained their confidence and proceeded with the full-scale migration to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace.
2. Migration drive for the remaining employees
After the initial proof of concept (POC), the IT team began the full-scale migration of the remaining users to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace. Within a week, all 800 mailboxes were created and operational, allowing employees to start using the new mailing service promptly. However, migrating more than 15 years of data required a more gradual approach and was completed over a phased period of four months.
During this extensive data migration, ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail's support team provided exceptional assistance, guiding India Cements through every step. Through calls, chats, and emails, the support team was consistently available and responsive, ensuring a smooth migration journey. This high level of support left a lasting positive impression on the company, reinforcing their confidence in choosing ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ as their new mailing and collaboration solution.
Favourite features of ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace
As part of its digital transformation journey, India Cements is using various ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace apps to enhance productivity and collaboration. By adopting tools such as ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Cliq, ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ WorkDrive, and primarily ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail, the company has streamlined communication and improved document management across teams.
×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail
The company was impressed with several features of ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail, which have significantly enhanced their email management experience. The extensive search option stands out, allowing users to search not only by email ID, date, and subject line but also by the content of the email and attachments. This advanced search capability is unique and immensely useful for finding specific information quickly.
Another favourite feature is Streams, which acts as a virtual notice board where messages and information can be posted for all group members. The inclusion of likes and comments facilitates structured discussions around the posts, ensuring that everyone stays informed and engaged.
Another feature the company loves about ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail is its ability to allow attachments of up to 500 MB. In contrast, other software, including the previously used platform, limited attachments to just 25 MB. This increased capacity has significantly benefited employees of the company by enabling them to share larger files seamlessly, reducing the need for external file-sharing services and streamlining communication.
×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ WorkDrive
The company uses ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ WorkDrive extensively to share larger files with both internal and external members. For internal collaboration, ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ WorkDrive provides a secure and efficient platform where employees can easily access, share, and collaborate on documents in real-time. When sharing files with external members, they particularly appreciate ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ WorkDrive’s ability to create external links. These links can be customized with passwords and expiry dates, ensuring secure and controlled access. This feature has been invaluable in maintaining the security and confidentiality of shared documents while also simplifying the process of distributing files to clients and partners.
×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Cliq and ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Meeting
The IT team at India Cements uses ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Cliq extensively for internal communication, finding it much easier and more efficient than sending numerous emails for internal discussions.
The company previously used Zoom for their virtual meetings, but it has now transitioned to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Meeting. They found that ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Meeting offers features that are on par, if not better, than Zoom's, making it an easy transition for their team. The main advantage of ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Meeting is its integration within the ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace suite, eliminating the need to purchase additional software. This consolidation has simplified their workflow and enhanced productivity by providing a comprehensive solution for all of their collaboration needs.
Benefits and ROI
Before migrating to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail, the IT team faced significant challenges and disruptions in managing the company's mailing service. They had to schedule downtime for 30 minutes to 6 hours every week to run backups of their data, causing considerable interruptions and hindering collaboration with clients. This regular disruption impacted productivity and led to frustration among employees.
Furthermore, the process of managing employee transitions was cumbersome and time-consuming. When an employee left the organization, tasks such as running backups and removing the employee from the system required substantial manual effort and often resulted in delays.
However, since adopting ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail, these issues have been eliminated. The company no longer experiences any downtime for backups. This has led to uninterrupted service and improved collaboration with clients. Managing employee transitions has become much simpler and more efficient, saving the IT team valuable time and resources.
Looking forward
The team is excited to explore and integrate more ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ products into their workflow, particularly ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Sheet, ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Show, and ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Writer. This shift to cloud-based solutions is expected to streamline document management, enhance collaboration, and improve overall productivity. By leveraging ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾'s application, the team aims to drive efficiency gains and stay ahead in technology adoption, positioning India Cements for continued growth and success in the future.
- IndustryManufacturing
- Company-size2000+ employees
- Industry typeB2B
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Challenges Faced
- Maintainance and upgradation of Lotus Notes demanded substantial efforts from the IT Team.
- Lack of essential collaboration tools without integrated options for file sharing or real-time collaboration.
What the company loves about ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Workplace
- Ability to migrate NSF files with 15+ years of data seamlessly to ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾.
- "Pay what you use" pricing model.
Favourite Features
- ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Mail's dual delivery feature that ensures that emails are delivered to both old and new systems for smooth transition.
- View, filter, and manage attachments without downloading them using attachment viewer.
- Ability to call and screen share in ×îв©²ÊÍøÕ¾ Cliq.