Renewi

Renewi was seeking to maximise user engagement with the new Microsoft Office 365 environment that had been implemented across multiple international sites.

CDW delivered an adoption programme to increase employee engagement and drive positive outcomes.

CDW’s Microsoft Adoption Team provided support and training to help 4,500 users take full advantage of the new tools available to them.

Resulting improvements in collaboration and communication are enhancing business operations whilst ensuring an outstanding service for Renewi’s customers.

An international waste-to-product organisation that annually handles approximately 14 million tonnes of waste, around 90% of which is recycled into new products or energy.

Provides services in across nine countries, via a network of over 200 local sites handling commercial, municipal, hazardous and industry-specific waste streams.

Renewi was formed in 2017 when Shanks Group and Van Gansewinkel (VGG) merged.

Around 8,000 employees, providing services in UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Luxemburg, Hungary and Canada.

Following a merger of two separate organisations, Shanks Group and Van Gansewinkel, Renewi wanted to establish a single domain and platform for its combined workforce of 4,500 users across multiple international sites. During the merger process, Renewi were keen to support the users in embracing the new tools available to them in order to ensure smooth communication and efficient working.

The new integration required employees at Renewi to become accustomed to: new mailboxes, collaboration via SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, the usage of all Microsoft Office 365 suite applications, upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and Skype for Business.

The challenge was to create a structured approach to guide employees through this complicated period of change and ensure they were sufficiently equipped to adopt the new technologies, therefore ensuring the best possible business outcome.

CDW’s Microsoft Adoption Team formulated a plan to help manage the process of user adoption and reinforce best practice consistently across the organisation. The team designed a programme of user training and support to ensure employees were empowered to harness the full potential of the Microsoft tools now available to them.

The project focused on engaging employees with the new technologies, showing them how to use all of the features, answering questions and solving any technical issues.

A structured project and change management framework was underpinned by CDW’s approach to user engagement across Renewi offices. It began by establishing a vision of what success would look like, followed by an analysis of current working practices, user needs and timelines.

The provision of educational resources and scheduling training sessions was key to the success. The next step was to introduce face-to-face interaction.

Having assembled a team of trainers to suit Renewi’s business culture, CDW managed the deployment of these trainers across all international sites.

The provision of practical support by personnel with experience of similar projects was an important aspect of CDW’s solution. The team conducted training sessions, including one-to-one interactions, and provided a floor-walking service to help with any ad-hoc queries or concerns.

CDW also set up remote support via its own Service Desk facility, and created groups so trainers could take calls from different sites regardless of differences in location, language and time zone.

Following the roll-out of the adoption programme, Renewi has reported extremely high user engagement, with the majority of employees taking full advantage of the new technologies. Key to this success was the experience, product knowledge and commitment of CDW’s support team, who, in some cases, continued working beyond their scheduled hours to meet ad-hoc needs.

Feedback from Renewi employees has been very positive. “CDW showed us not only how to use the tools, but what to use, why we should be using them and how they could simplify the work we do,” says Ed Lewis, Head of IT Commercial, Security and MI at Renewi.

The new platform has made information sharing quicker and easier than ever before, while the introduction of Skype for Business has already reduced some of the time and costs associated with travelling to meetings.

“Our contacts at CDW were very responsive with any issues, and their close relationship with Microsoft helped ensure success within the available time frame,” says Ed Lewis.

Moving forward, Ed expects to see further enhancements in collaboration as the Microsoft suite becomes more familiar to employees. A longer- term target is to embrace digital transformation and harness the power of IoT to enable continuous improvement in the provision of services.

Jonathan Eyton-Williams, Director, Solutions - International at CDW, said, “The success of any technology deployment depends heavily on the way in which it is adopted by users. If they are not aware of the benefits, do not receive appropriate training or perceive the transition as an impediment to their work, they are less likely to engage with the technology, which deprives the business of the full value of its investment. CDW’s Microsoft Adoption Team is dedicated to ensuring businesses are realising the potential of their investment by truly changing the way users work. By preparing for the deployment, managing a programme of user engagement and reinforcing the change, we help ensure workers exploit all the benefits of their new IT environment, helping them work more productively, efficiently and with greater commitment. It is rewarding to see a clear example of this at Renewi, which fully embraced our methodologies in order to achieve a positive business outcome”.