BelOrta is more productive thanks to new M365 intranet
BelOrta’s roots go all the way back to the early 20th century. What started as small, hyperlocal initiatives has grown into a leading cooperative fruit and vegetable auction, by producers, for producers. Every day, BelOrta delivers up to 4,000 tons of fresh produce. Through BelOrta, these products find their way to more than 70 countries worldwide. Over 1,000 growers ensure a year-round supply of more than 170 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and herbs, always locally grown and full of flavor.
Providing employees, partners, and suppliers with the best digital support
BelOrta is the result of several recent mergers. In 2013, Mechelse Veilingen and Coöbra joined forces to form BelOrta. A year later, Veiling Borgloon also became part of the cooperative. Today, BelOrta operates from three main locations. The headquarters is in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, with additional sites in Borgloon and Sint-Katelijne-Waver, plus a number of smaller locations—together employing around 400 people.
At the start of 2020, BelOrta decided to roll out Microsoft Teams. Coincidentally just before the COVID-19 crisis, all employees began using Teams to streamline collaboration and document sharing across sites.
"When we rolled out MS Teams, fortunately just before the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis, it quickly proved to be the ideal tool for our employees to remain productive from home and for ensuring smooth communication with other locations.
However, we quickly realized that a proliferation of MS Teams teams and documents maintained at various locations could pose a significant problem for the solution's long-term manageability. Therefore, we quickly decided that BelOrta employees would no longer be allowed to create teams themselves and would have to submit requests through our IT department. This naturally puts additional pressure on the IT helpdesk in the long run. The question arose again: could this be done more efficiently?"
Tim Van Caeyzeele, IT Manager at BelOrta, was closely involved in the migration to the M365 platform.
Redesign of the M365 Platform
Although some of the more than 500 BelOrta employees were already using the M365 platform (primarily Microsoft Teams), it quickly became clear that a platform redesign was necessary to take online collaboration to the next level. BelOrta contacted AXI, and the challenges related to their existing M365 environment were discussed in detail.
In addition, BelOrta had a few pressing questions they wanted to discuss with AXI:
- How does Teams work with SharePoint?
- Should we set up an intranet environment for each department?
- How should we establish a sound information architecture?
- How can partners and suppliers gain access to upload documents to the BelOrta M365 environment without any risk?
- What about the performance of the Microsoft SaaS platform?
- Are automations possible?
Integrating a clear M365 governance plan also quickly became essential. Because when employees, suppliers, and partners start sharing documents and data in SharePoint and Teams, governance rules are essential for establishing a consistent and streamlined collaboration environment.
Besides governance rules for online collaboration, consideration also needed to be given to a clear Teams structure that aligns with the organization, establishing consistent naming conventions for Teams, documents, and so on, and securely inviting external individuals.
Think big, start small
To address all of BelOrta's critical questions and challenges, AXI organized an inspirational session based on BelOrta's crucial internal information. This Explore phase provided the initial outline for the new information architecture.
Klaas Lauwers, Microsoft 365 Expert & Team Unit Manager Employee Productivity at AXI, was involved in the kickoff session with BelOrta. Following feedback from the initial session, a customized information architecture was developed and further developed.
With BelOrta's vision of "think big, start small" in mind, the AXI way of working fit perfectly into this picture. The migration process was further developed and finalized in various phases.
The Architect phase began with a blueprint to detail the high-level information architecture. Workshops were organized to establish the internal communication platform, the BelOrta intranet, which they named Bcosy (BelOrta Communication System). Initially, an intranet environment was created for the Quality and HR departments, along with a general landing page for the entire organization. A clear migration plan and governance plan were also proposed. All existing flows related to asset management and approvals were mapped out, and the long-term roadmap for the M365 platform was considered.
For BelOrta, it was also essential that all permanent employees had access to the intranet. Employees whose core responsibilities include working on a PC or laptop and administrative tasks should also be kept informed of all internal communications via the BelOrta intranet to increase engagement with the organization.
The Assist phase saw the effective implementation. The AXI implementation consultant established a basic information architecture in SharePoint and set up the intranet framework. AXI and BelOrta collaborated bidirectionally, intensively exchanging knowledge and strategic information to achieve the desired result. All data was then migrated from FileShare to SharePoint. This was followed by extensive testing, validation, and further adjustments.
BelOrta chose to implement the MS Teams Governance App. Built in Power Apps, the MS Teams Governance App offers numerous advantages:
- Employees can request a new MS Teams team via a form within the app, using an approval flow to avoid duplicate teams existing in the same team.
- Employees can use the app to pre-define channels, add team members, decide whether external parties have access, pin apps, and so on.
- An end date can also be added to the team, sending the owner a notification and allowing them to decide whether to extend the team, archive it immediately, or postpone the notification. The app also allows you to set notifications when a team has been out of use for a while. This simplifies team lifecycle management, and provides IT with a clear overview of all teams within the organization.
And last but not least, the AXI consultant can also provide training for power users. Extensive and in-depth training during the Assure phase is essential, ensuring that end users are fully familiar with the updated M365 and Teams environment.
Creative Employee Onboarding
The project delivery and go-live of the new internal communications platform went exceptionally smoothly.
BelOrta created a creative internal campaign to ensure successful employee onboarding. At the launch, each employee received a container of asparagus on their desk with a personalized message. This was a fun and exceptionally clever initiative by the Quality and HR departments to clearly highlight the possibilities and benefits of the new intranet. It quickly became apparent that the number of intranet visitors had increased dramatically: mission accomplished.
Embracing Microsoft Power Apps
In addition to the MS Teams Governance App, the first steps were taken in building MS Power Apps. With Power Apps, employees can build their own applications with little or no code to modernize certain processes. Connectors allow these apps to be easily integrated with email, SharePoint, and file shares to increase productivity and efficiency. A perfect added value for the M365 platform, where AXI can provide the necessary support and assistance to roll out specific Power Platform cases together with users. At BelOrta, annual clothing orders can now be entered digitally, eliminating the need for paper.
Other follow-up projects
Now that the HR and Quality departments have discovered the benefits of the BelOrta intranet, the Marketing department has also expressed interest in setting up a dedicated intranet environment for them. Other departments can also easily connect to the BelOrta intranet if desired. The intranet will be further expanded to centralize training courses and manuals.
A separate, secure SharePoint environment was set up for the BelOrta Board of Directors, where directors can consult all Board minutes at each meeting and where they can automatically send invitation emails and emails with the necessary reports from SharePoint.
To support BelOrta's Quality department with their annual ISO audit, AXI consultants will set up an automatic approval flow in SharePoint at the end of August 2021 for the periodic review of all ISO documents required for this audit. This will ensure optimal use of the Power Platform.
AXI and BelOrta: a critical and transparent collaboration
BelOrta was very satisfied with AXI's approach. The flexibility and critical perspective of our consultants throughout the various phases of the project were highly valued. Naturally, the BelOrta team could rely on the technical and functional knowledge and expertise of our consultants. This ensured transparent and honest communication, resulting in the project, which began in September 2020, being completed in May 2021.
Naturally, this didn't mark the end of the project for BelOrta, as AXI was subsequently asked to provide support with other specific questions, and AXI will continue to provide support for the use and setup of the new M365 and Teams environment.
