The Business
Visma is one of the leading business solution and service providers in Northern Europe, bringing business optimisation and management tools to companies of all sizes. The company was formed in 1996, after merging Multisoft, SpecTec and Dovre Information Systems. Today, the group comprises five business areas: SMB, Enterprise, Custom Solutions, Retail and IT & Hosting.
At Visma, they pride themselves on providing solutions and services that turn their customers’ business and administrative processes into competitive advantages. They make businesses more efficient by integrating and automating admin and business processes, whilst their team of experts provides professional services, training and support to their clients.
The Challenge
Previously working on ‘cloud-on-prem’ software and with a considerable amount of data centres, Visma were already very heavily involved with cloud and pretty much had their own private cloud. They needed to develop a cloud strategy that would provide enhanced capabilities to their employees and would increase collaboration and efficiency within the organisation. Their main goal was to incorporate a more collaborative way of working, which led them to a decision to start looking at cloud options.
It was decided that, although Microsoft had some great functionality, Google was the obvious choice for them. Mihai Comsa, Service Owner from Visma TNC said; “Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is getting better and better each year, and that’s exactly what we were looking for – a dynamic tool that will show clear improvements over time.”
With such a change across the organisation, Visma wanted to work with a company that would help staff embrace the smarter way of working. Their key focus was to provide their staff with the right tools that will allow them to work collaboratively with Google cloud based apps.
They were working with a different partner in the past, but started exploring companies that had more comprehensive experience and the necessary expertise to aid them in migrating, transforming, and utilising Google Cloud technology.
The Solution
Throughout their search for a partner, Visma were already in contact with CTS as they were using their world-leading migration software, CloudM.
Mihai said; “When we contacted CTS, we were looking for a company that had a lot of experience transforming companies with cloud solutions. It was also important for us to find a provider that understands us as a company and what our goals are, no matter their location. We were migrating to Google Workspace with CloudM Migrate at the time, and we quickly realised it was CTS we wanted to work with.”
With high levels of adoption on Google Drive, Visma were already seeing benefits within their teams; “everything is easier – finding, sharing and communicating as a whole is much better. All of the tools that the Google Workspace package is offering has brought a lot of value to us.” Mihai continues; “There aren’t any downfalls – the only thing is having time to learn how to use them to their full advantage. This is why CTS training was so useful for us. Once people understand the functionalities of the tools, then they get very used to them, especially the new functionalities that Google are adding with machine learning and A.I. – they really grow on you, and you end up relying on them a lot.”
The onboarding process began with CTS helping them become familiar with Google’s capabilities; guiding them through the different systems and the features they could take advantage of. The team delivered training in the Visma offices, enabling their staff to get more from the different applications available, how they work together and how easily they could share and cooperate between teams with Google Workspace.
Mihai said; “CTS are very engaging and provide training in a more fun way – a way that makes you want to take part in the workshop. They really helped us with the onboarding of over 600 Blue Garden employees – a company we acquired, and completely exceeded expectations. It smoothed the process of migration to Google Workspace a lot.”
As Visma are a growing business, they are now in initial steps of moving to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and working with CTS along the way. Mihai said; “we are now moving to a GCP partnership together, and everything is done directly through CTS. It was an obvious decision for us – moving to GCP and working with CTS. We are still some steps away from starting to use GCP properly, but I can’t wait.”
CTS works with Visma on billing and setting up the billing account for GCP to allow them to integrate in a more enterprise way and build projects directly through CTS so they can have full ownership on their environment. “The people is what makes CTS; they don’t forget about you once you’ve signed. It’s a partnership. They’re very agile, and we’re trying to become more agile ourselves. Working with them is good for us, it’s always a pleasure working with CTS. Especially with Dan Ackers and James Smith – they are both great at what they do. They help me solve issues as fast as possible, and they are always keen on working with us. It’s a really good relationship.”
The success of the deployment has had such an enormous impact on how the company works and communicates with each other, and have already seen benefits such as up time and scaling. Mihai said; “CTS have really helped transform our company. When support or anything is needed, they are here for us, and we can rely on them to help us reach our goals, especially when it comes to Google Workspace and GCP. They are true cloud specialists.”
Working with CTS, Visma migrated over 8000 users to Google Workspace and helped their employees to work more collaboratively and efficiently within their company. Visma have transformed the way they work by utilising Google’s tools and continue to drive innovation.