Customer Story
Retail Chain Metro Maximises the Returns of Technology
Home-grown department store, Metro reaps the benefits of an ICT-backed workplace, and looks forward to even more.
Ever-rising consumer expectations and demands fuel the need for progressive retailers like 60-year-old Metro to constantly pursue better, faster and smarter ways to work, to stay ahead of the game. This is especially so in the digital age, where consumers are increasingly empowered to shop online at any shopping site anywhere in the world just within clicks.
This, says Ivan Chua, Head of IT, is why Metro is always on the lookout for new technologies that can improve its operational processes and increase productivity, such as having its own ecommerce website, and collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Office 365. “Our management is very supportive of adopting new technologies within the organisation – the move three years ago to implement Microsoft Office 365 from on-premise service is a good example,” he adds.
Making reference to Metro’s pre-Office 365 days, when it was using its own Exchange Server (an email and calendar server), email archiving was “a nightmare”. This took a turn three years ago, when Metro signed a contract directly with Microsoft Office 365, seeing its potential in email archiving. “Office 365 not only addressed the major concern of archival issues; it also reduced costs and efforts of managing an Exchange Server, boosting the IT team’s productivity,” he related.
When its contract with Microsoft 365 was ending, Metro was certain that Office 365 was the way to go but they were looking to renew their contract with a new provider – one which could offer more support, and expedite the troubleshooting process.
“We were actually already talking to another vendor, and were about to renew our Microsoft Office 365 contract through them. Around that time, one of my colleagues chanced upon Singtel’s offering. Its value-added services, such as training and dedicate support stood. That’s when we decided to go with Singtel,” he shares.
Great Support and “TLC”
In the past, when Metro worked directly with Microsoft, contacting the help centre directly when it encountered technical issues was the only solution. However, Microsoft’s customer support rotates from country to country, on a 24-hour basis, and this resulted in Metro’s queries, even on the same issue, being attended to by different teams. “Many a time, one call log may be transferred between two teams, each from a different country,” he explains.
With Singtel as its vendor, Metro is served by a single support team locally, which enhances continuity and reduces complexities in the issue resolution process. Ivan expressed how it felt the team had been very responsive, and was impressed by the high levels of engagement Singtel offers – he jokingly calls it “tender loving care”.
While his team has not encountered major issues so far, he recalls an instance where he sought clarifications on a resource booking system from Singtel, and managed to resolve his query on the same day.
Ivan adds that on top of Singtel’s support, his team can still seek assistance from Microsoft directly if the need arises.
More Than Just Email
On top of being responsible for timely resolution and follow-through of IT issues, Ivan is also in charge of IT resource management – that is, to make sure that all resources are fully maximised. Ensuring that his team is able to keep pace with the ever-changing environment is also part of the job.
When Singtel came on board, its team was ready to leverage its deep domain knowledge and experience to help Metro staff discover new possibilities to change the way they work. As a result, Metro’s team learnt more about the various apps available, many of which have been adopted into the daily workflow.
“I think people mainly know Office 365 as an email system,” says Ivan. “But it’s so much more than that,” he adds, referring to other Office 365-integrated features, such as OneDrive, a file-hosting service; and SharePoint, a web-based collaborative system for document management.
“Traditionally, people attach documents within emails, creating many duplicates with every update. An easier way would be to put the file into OneDrive or SharePoint and share the link. In this way, all parties can access it conveniently,” he explains.
Value-added Training
Recently, Metro sent over 50 of its staff to a hands-on Office 365 training course provided by Singtel, which sparked off the utilisation of more productivity-enhancing Office 365 applications in the workplace.
“I saw training as a good platform to advocate to the staff, what Office 365 can really do. It’s actually through the training that more awareness of Office 365’s potential was created,” he says, adding that he saw this “refresher course” offered exclusively by Singtel, as one that plays a role in Metro’s staff development efforts.
“Otherwise, for a good three years, no one actually made the effort to leverage the other features of Office 365, ” he adds.
Since then, Ivan has observed more staff sharing documents through OneDrive. Some have also started to create calendars within SharePoint, veering from their usual practice of sharing calendars through Excel sheets.
A piece of Do Different advice from Ivan
“We were actually already talking to another vendor, and were about to renew our Microsoft Office 365 contract through them. Around that time, one of my colleagues chanced upon Singtel’s offering. Its value-added services, such as training and dedicate support stood out to us. That’s when we decided to go with Singtel.“
- Ivan Chua, Head of IT
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