Aussie Broadband leverages Microsoft SharePoint to drive workplace modernisation

Multi-award winning, local hero, Aussie Broadband Limited (ASX:ABB) is a telecommunications success story. Recently publicly listed, Aussie truly has its Australian customers, operations, and ingenuity at the heart of everything it does. The enterprise has experienced dynamic growth over its 17 years, and as Aussie plans to continue winning greater market share, it must be able to identify opportunities and move with pace to maintain their industry-leading, customer-centric reputation.

“Aussie Broadband operates to change the game; we are a telco that does things differently. Customers are at the centre of our decisions. And chief among our corporate values is ensuring we meet all compliance obligations. So, we absolutely must have the right tools to make the right decisions,” says Andrew Webster, Head of Risk and Compliance at Aussie Broadband.

The impact of growth

With Aussie’s accelerated growth over recent years, the range of business systems and volume of content generated has increased exponentially. SharePoint had previously been deployed as Aussie’s document management system, but an aged version did not have the latest stringent compliance measures to govern use. And with the end of support for the outdated environment, the risks were expanding.

Aussie acknowledged that a more robust, scalable, and functionally rich platform was needed to manage document creation, version control, corporate policies, and procedures – one with stronger risk and compliance measures.

“We needed to future proof our ways of working,” Andrew explains. “Everyone from the CEO to the contact centre staff must have all the information they need at their fingertips. It must be easy to find, accessible, version controlled and current. So, the question put was what technologies should we introduce to help everyone do their jobs more effectively?”

“This SharePoint project has had massive outcomes. We’ve future proofed how we work. Aussie has new levels of employee satisfaction and compliance with an environment that presents far less risk.”

Single source of truth solution

Aussie Broadband connected with FiveP to address the immediate, core limitations of its network file sharing and custom-built Wiki tool. FiveP was commissioned to “help us take on board our existing history, from its multiple sources, and set up our data, our information management needs – while also catering for scale and the growth we’re driving for over the next couple of years,” Andrew says.

Centralised collaboration powering effective workplace

Aussie has achieved the much-needed productivity and compliance gains it sought in partnering with FiveP. Its modernised, SharePoint Online-enabled workplace is contributing to the organisation fulfilling its potential.

Andrew says: “For us, we have confidence in the robust information management framework now in place.”

“Our risks, particularly those around regulatory compliance, are under our control. That has been a massive outcome. We have higher levels of corporate governance and de-risked our exposure to data loss.”

Aussie Broadband’s staff have a centralised collaboration space with easy access to files and version control in real-time: “Our staff have access to the people and documents they need to get their jobs done”.

Aussie did not need to mandate use of the new SharePoint platform. “Because document creation, file access and collaboration are now so easy, staff have naturally moved away from their own apps.”

“We have seen astronomical adoption metrics. We have the numbers on how many people are using the new solution, how they are accessing information and how often,” Andrew says.

“SharePoint sits at the core of our ecosystem. It is how we communicate and share. It makes meetings so easy to pull together and run well. SharePoint is built into our language within the business.”

Aussie has also seen how important good technology is for its employees: “A tool like SharePoint contributes so positively to wellbeing. It impacts satisfaction with individual roles and connection to the wider organisation. And that leads to better decision making and responses to customers – those vital elements to our enviable reputation,” he says.

“The functionality we now have with SharePoint – how and where documents are stored, how they’re linked, version control, accessibility, and sharing across the business – has seen a stellar improvement.”

Certified recognition of results

Aussie Broadband subsequently completed its ISO 27001 certification for Information Security Management following the completion of the SharePoint Online project with FiveP. The work undertaken provided the robust framework for Aussie’s information management and data handling compliance recognised in the audit process.

“We successfully went through the certification process – which was fantastic. One of the comments from the independent auditor was how efficient and easy to process our application was because we had all the information set up and structured in a dedicated team site on SharePoint. They were really impressed by the document functionality we had in terms of where they were stored, how they were linked and shared across the business, plus the access, version, and accessibility controls,” Andrew says.

As a result of this project and the knowledge transfer from the team at FiveP, the internal teams at Aussie now have the skills, structures, and tools to replicate different scenarios into the future. SharePoint is key to the telco’s ability to support staff and customers, as Aussie scales for even more growth.