Editor’s Note: Today’s post is from Jonathan Root, Head of IT at Camelot Global, a leading lottery services provider based in Fitzrovia, London. Back in 2015, the company had 80 employees worldwide and expected to grow to 200-300 people within a few months. They were faced with a choice to buy more Microsoft licences or do something different.
A flexible and secure environment
Camelot Global is a growing agile enterprise. We have developers, architects, security specialists and digital insight gurus spread across the world. The legacy collaboration tools we had when I joined were simply not right for our business.
The team wanted to work in a more flexible environment and have access to secure, efficient IT from anywhere. Our developers wanted integration with “Slack” and other tools whilst our subcontractors based in Europe needed to collaborate in real time with the rest of the organisation.
Moving to the cloud was the only solution
Ancoris ran user workshops which gave the board the confidence that our change management program would support them through the transition. We built a case with the simple licensing structure and the suite of integrated applications (real-time collaboration, instant messaging and video). But the deal clincher was that we would be able to quickly set up business locations to support lotteries anywhere in the world with no infrastructure from Camelot.
The whole group is an extensive user of Google Hangout Meet and has gone from having no real VC capability to having every meeting room fitted out with Google Hangouts Meet hardware. Since a recent office move, we have introduced Chrome devices integrated with G Suite (now known as Google Workspace) and transformed our meeting spaces audio and video quality - keeping the momentum going, irrespective of team locations spread across the US, Ireland, UK and other European countries.
“Video calls are now far more common than a phone call and the extra engagement and understanding delivered by seeing the people you are talking to should not be underestimated.”
G Suite has driven a massive improvement in collaboration and communication. Being able to review and update documents in real time has saved us from repeated document reviews and version confusion allowing a significant increase in productivity.
"Ancoris has helped us take this journey. The whole team are there, happy to talk to you and know their areas well. The bit that surprises me is the breadth of their knowledge."
They have backed up my team, giving advice on dealing with the change fears of difficult staff, digging into technical details of difficult synchronisation issues, helped us optimise our meeting room hardware and guided us through expanding our environment to support the management of the Illinois State Lottery.
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