See how Lenovo is using Microsoft Outlook/lync for the ultimate

Improve work efficiency and innovation is the eternal theme of enterprise management, employee productivity plays a decisive role in the enterprise benefit. Famous business expert Tan Xiaofang once said: "To build a first-class enterprise, employees must have first-class efficiency." "Inefficiency will eventually become a critical weakness in the development of the enterprise!" for large enterprises, inter-employee communication and co-operation has a great impact on work efficiency, especially with more than 20,000 employees, in many countries and regions around the world with branch offices of Lenovo Group, the collaboration between employees is particularly important.

Lenovo successfully acquired IBM's personal computer division in 2004, becoming the world's third largest PC maker. Lenovo's rapid development, beyond Dell and Hewlett-Packard, became the world's largest personal computer manufacturer with a turnover of $34 billion, and a new leader in pc+ products. It is precisely because of this acquisition, Lenovo's office platform is based entirely on IBM notes, FileNet, Sametime and other platforms.

With the rapid expansion of Lenovo, the number of employees is increasing, the need for communication and co-work is also growing. Although the IBM Office platform can basically meet the daily needs of Lenovo employees, its annual usage fee of 17% makes Lenovo it basic services and development Vice President Zhang Kunsheng distressed-even for Lenovo Group, 17% of the annual usage fee is an expensive expense. And the number of Lenovo employees is growing rapidly, and the cost is growing rapidly. Zhang Kunsheng is eager to find a more advanced, more cost-effective office platform, to protect and even improve the efficiency of staff office, while saving costs.

After a comprehensive comparison of multiple office platforms, Zhang Kunsheng selected Microsoft's Exchange/outlook, Lync, and SharePoint App services. Because Outlook has the broadest user base, for many new employees, there is no need to learn at all and can be used directly. And Outlook is one of the most mature mail system, has a strong ease of use, the old staff through simple learning, but also can be quickly familiar with and use. And Lync is a very good internal communication and conferencing system, features rich, including instant messaging, application sharing, audio, video, PPT, whiteboard, voting, appointment and schedule, recording, notes and other functions. More importantly, the cost savings can be greatly reduced compared to traditional conference calls and Sametime,lync. SharePoint can help Lenovo employees develop intelligent portal sites that seamlessly connect to users, teams, and knowledge. Employees are better able to take advantage of relevant information in business processes and work more effectively.

In May 2012, the new next-generation end-user Workplace project, driven by Zhang Kunsheng, was launched in association with the aim of improving the efficiency of staff working together. The project is divided into three phases, the first of which is Hello Outlook, which mainly migrates the Lenovo Mail platform from IBM Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange/outlook, improving the convenience and ease of use of the mail service. Use Lync instead of the original sametime to meet the immediate messaging needs of your employees. The second stage is Hello Unity, which builds a unified communication platform for voice, conferencing, and video on a Lync basis (Cnskype for business office software, instant Messenger software) to meet the needs of employees for more communication. The third stage is Hello collaboration, which builds a virtual global Office collaboration platform based on SharePoint to meet the increasingly demanding collaboration needs of employees, including personal portals, team sites, information search, and tighter integration with Outlook and Lync.

Outlook : A more convenient and easy-to-use mail platform

After the Outlook system was built, the biggest problem Zhang Kunsheng encountered was how to get the employees to use it, after all, Lenovo's old employees have been using Lotus Notes, and changing user habits is the most difficult. In order for employees to use the new platform, Zhang Kunsheng is using all resources. "The first is to encourage everyone to use, after a period of time through the executive order to use, after the transition period is to close the old account directly switch." It is gratifying to note that our policies have achieved good results. "Zhang Kunsheng laughed.

In fact, in addition to the role of various policies, Outlook this mature platform also let Zhang Kunsheng worry a lot. The platform is very easy to use, the staff only need simple learning, you can quickly get started. And Outlook has a very broad user base, and most of Lenovo's new employees are very familiar with and welcome Outlook. In addition, the seamless connection between Outlook and Word, Excel and PowerPoint software, as well as the super stability and ultra-fast speed also won the favor of many employees.

Lync : More advanced, more cost-effective meeting platform

If Outlook changes the way employees use their mail, Lync (cnskype for business) can say that it completely changes the form of a conference call. Previously, Lenovo employees used most of the traditional conference calls, Lenovo Group in a year on the conference call spending on the $11 million. In addition to the expensive costs, the conference calls there are many inconvenient places. Traditional conference calls need to connect the phone to meet, the participants must hold the phone or with headphones to achieve communication, and the telephone conference is generally discussed in the program and subject, which requires participants to use the computer at the same time, while the phone while using the computer will cause great trouble to the participants.

After the completion of the unified communication platform for integrated voice, conferencing, and video based on Lync, employees can turn on the conference call directly from the computer cnskype. Now, in the Lenovo Group is ubiquitous in this scenario: an employee through Lync and field colleagues to discuss the program, the computer screen shows that they are discussing the scheme, they do not have headphones, do not have to hold a cell phone, and even can stand up to walk a few steps, think of ideas, communication effect and real close communication is not much different.

In addition to the traditional teleconferencing features, Lync has more advanced features. such as the instant dynamic function (Cnskype for business), the user can upgrade the status at any time and display to the contact list, so that the other side can know whether they are in the seat, or go out or are busy a work can not be interrupted; voice mail conversion function, Voice mail can be recorded in real time and translated into text, integrated location services, the system will automatically detect the sub-network and determine the location of users, users can also customize the location and so on.

In addition to the powerful features of Lync, Zhang Kunsheng also has its very high price-performance ratio. He said: "The new features of Lync since January Global launch, the current monthly conference usage of 2.4 million minutes, monthly can save a lot of money for the company, and this number is increasing with the user acceptance of the rise. "Just a short time ago, Zhang Kunsheng also on his Weibo to a Lync point of praise:" Have to give Lync point of praise, because it is really convenient, very easy to use, but also very cheap. ”

From Outlook to Lync to (Cnskype for business), Microsoft's two application services help Lenovo build a convenient and efficient communication platform. Zhang Kunsheng emphasized the importance of the platform: "This will become another important milestone in Lenovo's it history, marking the full departure of Lenovo's pc+ era of office space!" based on the new platform, employees are quick and efficient-this will be a magic weapon for us to achieve a brilliant record in the pc+ era. ”

See how Lenovo is using Microsoft Outlook/lync for the ultimate