Probably the best digital office in the world?

NTT has announced the deployment of a new digital office in the Krakow headquarters of the HEINEKEN Shared Services Center. Thanks to this implementation, nearly 1,500 employees can experience a hybrid workplace model.

HEINEKEN Global Shared Services is an integral part of HEINEKEN, which has been present in Krakow since 2012. The decision to move the company’s financial and operational Shared Services Centers to this location from Malopolska provided an opportunity to reassess the best approach for its campus network needs.

“Our employees around the world belong to 27 different nationalities and speak 17 different languages. Therefore, we are well aware of the important role that effective communication plays in a successful business,” commented Ewa Szalewska, Head of People Function at HEINEKEN. “Following the pandemic, hybrid work has increased, which has affected the way that employees work together and communicate. This is why we decided to create a digital office that will support our team moving forward and allow them to perform their duties, regardless of where they choose to log on from.”

In today’s landscape, such a strategy is still a novelty for many. In fact, according to NTT research, 8 out of 10 business representatives believe that supporting remote work is still a challenge for them.

Revolutionizing the HEINEKEN Experience

One of HEINEKEN’s primary goals when modernizing the Poland office was to meet the requirements of a hybrid workplace to attract talented, skilled people from across Europe. Another consideration was the desire to move infrastructure management to a managed services model to enable the relatively small in-house IT team to focus on internal services.

“We needed support in designing the best solutions and choosing the best technologies. We trusted NTT because of their extensive capabilities and numerous partners. We appreciate the dedication and personal commitment of the NTT team, who coordinated many implementations in a very short time frame,” commented Paweł Miodek, D&T Service Delivery Manager at HEINEKEN.

“Throughout the implementation, our NTT team was entrusted with network infrastructure, security and contact center management, as well as coordination of the entire implementation process,” said Rafał Sałyga, Go-To-Market Director from NTT Ltd. in Poland. “This is also not the end of our partnership, as NTT will also be responsible for a round-the-clock technical center that will support the employees of the corporation moving forward.”

Migration to the cloud

Following a series of interviews with HEINEKEN employees as well as the architects responsible for arranging the office, it was agreed that a key priority was to transfer the company’s services from its current on-premises model to the cloud; the entire LAN and Contact Centre infrastructure was moved to the managed services model using Cisco solutions.

“Cloud infrastructure is the basis for hybrid work. Without this, it would not be possible to achieve the goals of unified systems and trouble-free and secure access to digital tools and resources from anywhere,” said Łucja Barbaszewska, Head of Sales to the Commercial Market at Cisco Polska. “Cloud gives flexibility, which in turn facilitates productivity and increases employee satisfaction. Using it, all employees, regardless of where they are, can work equally effectively.”

As part of the implementation, the Krakow office also now includes several facilities to collaborate comfortably and creatively, including a system for booking desks, parking spaces, conference rooms and even shelves for belongings. Employees have a preview of who is planning to come into the office on a given day and where they are going to sit, which can be helpful in terms of team collaboration. The data collected via this feature provides valuable feedback for HEINEKEN, as it can be used to monitor which zones of the office are used.

The system is not everything

NTT also partnered with Logitech for hardware solutions dedicated to remote work. The Krakow office now incorporates cameras, audio systems, video terminals and wireless pointing devices to improve the quality of work.

"All employees now use the same interface, regardless of whether they are in the office or at home. This unified system makes business operations simple and trouble-free. The solutions used are modular, which means that we can easily expand and combine them, as well as scale later on,” commented Bartosz Gruza, Manager at Logitech.