Since October 2022 Softline has been operating under the brand name Noventiq.

Although business growth plays a key role in building a successful future for any company, it must be managed carefully. Increasing the headcount significantly is often followed by geographical expansion, and these steps can uncover several issues commonly associated with growth:

• How to maintain a strong corporate culture within a disparate workforce?
• How to ensure consistency in documentation when thousands of documents are created by employees every day?
• And how to ensure that everyone in the company is on board with the latest information when there is so much of it floating around?

The challenge

The transition is often burdened by the legacy platforms and tools. Employees tend to stick with what they know, posing a challenge when driving change. This happened with Vee Technologies, a leading consulting and professional services organization. The cumbersome email system they used was slowing the company down and leading to barriers in information flow. Also, their document repositories were fragmented and disorganised, diminishing team members’ confidence when it came to locating and sharing documents.

The state of play was something which we see all too often:

• Important information languishing in different places
• Employees not knowing where to look for what they need
• Lack of consistency was impairing the teams’ ability to deliver extraordinary outcomes

The solution

When Softline was brought in to analyse the problem, we were immediately able to identify the legacy technology used by Vee Technologies as the root of the problem hindering consistency, information flow, and communications. Our experts came up with a comprehensive solution which combined a customised set of tools from Microsoft to unite all teams under one cloud. In fact, extraneous solutions can often impair the outcome, so we were stringent when it came to the selection, choosing only those tools that would serve to realise the three target outcomes. 

However, finding the solution is only half the battle. Unless employees are properly informed and trained about the upcoming changes as well as the opportunity to give feedback, then the solution will not work. So, Softline helped to ensure that everyone in the company knew what to expect, had ample time to give input, and participate in training where necessary. After deployment, Softline was on hand to provide technical support, and to make sure that the solution was running smoothly for every individual, between departments, and for the company as a whole. This part of the process was essential as it allowed us to analyse uptake, identify issues through feedback and system testing, and then to make the necessary tweaks to optimise the solution.

The outcome

This initiative served to lift the barriers to communication across the company, allowing information to be stored logically, and removed the endemic inconsistency created by multiple copies and endless siloed documents. Now, all employees can access information wherever they are, and from any device, safe in the knowledge that it is up to date. In turn, managers and decision makers can track the flow of information, and check the status of tasks and projects without having to dig around for what they are looking for. The solutions implemented by Softline have also helped to improve the creative process as well. Now, teams can set up conference calls, assemble teams, and assign tasks with zero hassle. The seamlessness of these actions allows individuals to focus on doing what they do best – being creative together – even when they are on different continents.

“Issues with uptake when introducing sweeping solutions are, perhaps, inevitable. However, Softline was careful to forewarn us about the limitations as well as the possibilities of the solution. Their approach to change management ensured that we had a smooth transition to what is, effectively, a new work space for us – and the effect on workflow was instantaneous. We definitely feel that the solution they tailored for us and the guidance they provided have resulted in our teams being able to share ideas and collaborate on projects more effectively through the new solutions implemented.” Murali Krishnan, Senior Manager-Compliance & CISO, Vee Technologies

“One of the largest challenges we faced on this project was bringing all 600 members of a disparate workforce together in one place. We achieved this by consolidating the information channels and storage, and then integrating project management and communication tools which feed back to these indexes. This enabled Vee Technologies to shift their teams, tools, and services to a single platform, ensuring that the issues with consistency are addressed, and that information sharing – and creativity – was everything it should be.” Atul Ahuja, Senior Vice President MEA and Asia, Softline.