Cloud computing in retail: advance your company with a solid cloud migration strategy and modern workplace solutions

Staples Solutions, a leader in the industry of office products and solutions, has faced the challenge of improving its day-to-day operations while maintaining cost-effectiveness. The company entrusted Sii to manage SharePoint migration to cloud-based Microsoft services. The migration process had to be easy to implement without interrupting the users.

Staples Solutions supports businesses of all sizes, from solopreneurs to the Fortune 100, with office supplies, facilities, breakroom supplies, furniture, technology, promotional products and print & marketing services. The company presented Sii with a challenge quite large in volume – 800 GB of data kept on SharePoint. Staples Solutions searched for a way to reduce infrastructure maintenance costs, and at the same time stick to the already developed and used solutions as well as maintain one global system with the well-known interface and usability.

Sii helped Staples Solutions with the organization of their current SharePoint 2013 farms to solve problems that users encounter in their day-to-day work. The biggest challenges that needed to be addressed were high infrastructure expenses, related to SharePoint 2013 farms being built using several servers and the substantial cost of SharePoint on-premises licenses which had to be prolonged in the upcoming few months.

– The solution had to keep the current data intact while having critical business applications up and running. Moreover, the user’s daily work could not be influenced by any delays or situations when the system is not operative – says Karolina Schuetz, Business Manager at Sii.

The solution included custom applications migration. In total, nine custom applications were moved from SharePoint on-premise to Office 365, keeping their original functionality and adding extra elements like dedicated dashboards.

– Selecting SharePoint Online as a new platform was supported by many arguments, including low infrastructure cost and the fact that the license price may be significantly reduced compared to other systems. With Office 365 there is no need to keep internal SharePoint servers, so the company does not have to bear additional expenses – says Tomasz Rabiński, Service Delivery Manager at Sii.

– What is more, data kept on SharePoint on-premise is fully compatible with SharePoint Online. Users do not have to worry that their documents won’t work on a new platform – adds Szymon Bochniak, Service Delivery Manager at Sii.

As a result of the project, Staples Solutions has gained their cloud-based modern workspace which will help the users to collaborate and exchange information in an efficient and easy way. The company’s site structures have been reviewed, unused sites have been removed, overall data volume has decreased thanks to the cleaning process introduced during the migration.

– During the analysis phase, we already decreased the volume of data by removing it from the scope of every unused site – says Tomasz Rabiński. – As a part of our Office 365 migration framework we reorganized the documents structure, following a few simple rules. First of all, we migrated only the latest and most relevant file versions, omitting these which were determined obsolete. Secondly, we’ve combined files from various locations (including different farms) based on their type, content or status. Thirdly, we’ve updated lists and libraries by creating the most suitable views. Last but not least, we’ve updated the list, library and old views settings to ensure that the list views threshold was not reached – explains Tomasz Rabiński.

Save your money, grow your teams

Sii not only helped to trim costs but also presented the users with many new possibilities. The collaboration rate between users has grown approximately 20% (number of announcements, file-sharing, overall SharePoint usage). Finally, the goal has been reached, Staples Solutions has given up using SharePoint on-premise to fully utilize Office 365 fundamentals.

Thanks to a well-conducted analysis phase, any possible issues were identified before the migration has even begun. This allows us to significantly speed up the whole process. A pre-determined schedule was of crucial importance for this project, which is why Sii continued the migration around the clock, weekends included. It is worth mentioning that the process didn’t interrupt Staples Solutions’ daily business work and none of the client’s systems was influenced by Sii’s activity – the migration was fully transparent.

Sii executed several migrations processes completed successfully. Such projects can be handled without any failures thanks to the vast experience and dedicated tools, such as Sharegate. If you would like to find out how Office365 can improve your company, contact our experts from the Office 365 Competency Center.