Food Agility is a $150million+ Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) focussed on creating new digital technologies and services to benefit the Australian agrifood industry. The CRC is funded by the Federal Government and partners to undertake applied research over 10 years from 2018.
The Food Agility team were becoming increasingly frustrated with trying to use platforms that didn’t integrate with each other; email inboxes being overcrowded; files being inaccessible; and unreliable security measures. The CRC relies on solid communication and document organisation to enable their success.
The biggest challenge was ensuring the new technology was adopted by Food Agility’s staff. Microsoft 365 would replace multiple point solutions with one integrated office ecosystem. This was a significant change for staff so to ensure the technology was adopted, Insync Technology proposed Food Agility complete their Champions’ Program.
The migration to Microsoft 365 led by Insync Technology resulted in increased productivity and better collaboration among other business improvements. Staff in all locations were able to access and edit files without issue and email traffic decreased significantly. Food Agility found that Office 365 also provided much better connection for remote staff and made the staff feel like one team, not multiple divisions of a team.
Food Agility now plans to roll out additional modern workplace tools including an Office integrated task management system. The CRC is also considering bringing in professional IT support. To date this has been a responsibility shared across team members.