White Paper
Make the move to Office 365
a win-win by training your users!
Why CIOs and HR managers have no choice but to get along to achieve long-term goals?
www.vodeclic.com
A Skillsoft Company
FOREWORD
Ever since its arrival, the move toward the cloud has been advancing at a breakneck pace. The
virtualization of software in the cloud represents a bona fide revolution that not only reexamines how
users work, but also how businesses operate. At the center of all these strategic decisions are CIOs,
who play a crucial role in helping their companies transform and fully leverage the potential of the
digital world.
But the challenges CIOs face in realizing this transition go far beyond mere technological matters. They
extend to the project's overall success, which inevitably encompasses a human element: employees'
digital skills.
That's why CIOs and HR managers – whose worlds usually never cross – must work together in order
to achieve long-term goals.
This white paper is written for the head officers of both the IT and HR departments within their
respective companies or organizations. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of employees'
digital skills in planning for the move to Office 365.
CONTENTS
THE CLOUD IS RADICALLY CHANGING THE WAY COMPANIES MIGRATE
3
WHAT KIND OF CHANGES HAS OFFICE 365 MADE?
5
HOW CAN YOU SOLVE THE NEW CHALLENGE
OF EMPLOYEES’ RECURRING DIGITAL SKILLS GAP?
7
2 / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / © Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company
THE CLOUD IS RADICALLY CHANGING
THE WAY COMPANIES MIGRATE
A snapshot of a typical company not long ago
was pretty straightforward: 1,000 employees,
1,000 workstations, 1,000 Windows licenses,
1,000 Office licenses. A fairly easy technology
landscape to maintain.
overall initiative. HR staff would put together
courses using traditional methods, such as
instructor-led training, video conferences, and
handouts, that took place whenever these
changes occurred.
Until only recently, employees used just 20
basic functions in the most representative
software programs on the market, which was
enough to demonstrate the ability to perform
only a hundred or so different tasks.
Through the 1980s and 2000s, the role of IT
departments drastically changed. To put it
simply, they went from merely making hardware
and software decisions to implementing
projects that evaluated and supported the
company's strategic opportunities.
Cloud computing ranks third among
the list of CIO technology priorities. (1)
Migration practices
change every 5 years
Those were the days! Companies were the ones
to decide when it was time to upgrade their
application portfolio. Every five or six years,
they would update their operating system or
switch to a new version. This meant they could
even decide when to conduct desktop training
and for whom.
The "all at once" migration scheme was a
strategy they could repeat every 3 or 5 years.
The CIO's job often only involved making sure
the technical migration was smooth, and the
project was considered complete once all of
the company's computers had been upgraded.
Change management was also conducted
on a one-off basis, usually after the technical
migration had already been completed. Users
took training as-needed to improve their
desktop skills – considered just one part of the
Cloud computing enables
companies to become more agile...
but also expands the role of CIOs
The cloud has changed the game. Companies
are at the mercy of its continued spread, racing
through organizations everywhere. CIOs are
now responsible for IT governance and for
creating business value – requiring them to
work closely with the concerned business units
in order to achieve that goal.
The global cloud computing market is
expected to grow from $37.8 billion in
2010 to $121.1 billion in 2015 at a CAGR of
26.2% from 2010 to 2015. (2)
"Digital business has become the lingua franca
of modern business, a common and unifying
(3)
language around the globe," said Partha
Iyengar, Vice President and distinguished
analyst at Gartner. "As enterprises prepare
for an increasingly digital world, CIOs must
learn to tap into technology expertise across
organizations and business domains." (3)
© Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / 3
According to a Harvard Business Review
Analytic Services report, business agility is the
main driver for adopting cloud computing. (4)
It also means bringing in experts with the right
skills and talent, says the research firm Gartner,
who know how to deliver and use the digital
experience as leverage for the business.
Amidst this strong trend are the growing
number of applications, Internet services, and
mobile devices coming onto market, as well
as the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) craze.
These are just some of the many drivers that
make companies' efforts to move to the cloud
more complex, putting an even heavier strain
on workers.
40% of enterprise employees use personal
devices for work. (5)
The digital skills gap must now
be managed regularly, not just
occasionally
The frequency of software updates is not only
a concern for companies, but also makes it
extremely difficult to maintain their employees'
computer skills at the same pace.
Corporate practices are thrown into disarray,
since software publishers are deciding when to
come out with new releases. The digital skills
gap must now be managed regularly, not just
occasionally. An accelerated update schedule,
coupled with numerous software features,
requires new models and practices to be
adopted that go beyond mere technology.
Only 53% of the labor force said they are
confident that their level of computer
and/or internet skills are sufficient.(6)
On top of this, the consumerization of IT trend
is gaining momentum, making the end user
the prime focus of devices and even enterprise
software.
Because the employee is now the one who buys
or determines which solution their company
chooses, it's no longer enough for CIOs to
complete the migration from a purely technical
standpoint. They must also ensure every
employee is proficient in using the technology.
As for HR managers, they must deliver more
user-specific training models.
And they must reach these goals together!
We get it. Cloud computing has become a mainstay. And with it comes escalating
waves of large-scale migrations that now encompass the human element.
4 / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / © Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company
WHAT KIND OF CHANGES HAS OFFICE 365 MADE?
Office 365 is the fastest-growing business in Microsoft's history: 25% of their enterprise accounts
are now running it, and the number of SMBs using it increased by 150% in 2012 – eight times faster
than the previous version. (7)
According to Kurt DelBene, President of Microsoft's Office Division, "We have already gotten Office
365 to the point where we're at a quarterly release cadence... and we'll have the ability to do that
with client business as well, the desktop version of Office." (8)
Office 365 is the fastest growing business
in Microsoft’s history, one out of four
enterprise clients owns Office 365. (7)
CIOs are on the digitalization
center stage
According to Gartner, 41% of CIOs now report
directly to Executive Management, one of the
highest levels observed. (9) The research firm
believes that this reflects executive leadership's
desire to involve IT in digitalization. Yet
by having the faith they can do so without
increasing the budget!
As we've already discussed, migration of IT
systems to the cloud are happening practically
non-stop. Since this implies that applications
are being constantly updated, CIOs have to
rethink how they deliver services to workers in
order to improve company performance.
Companies are shifting towards a much
more complex workplace: a multi-faceted IT
environment, desktops and laptops, tablets
and mobile phones, the move to cloud-based
software.
Not to mention globalization, which forces
companies to become increasingly more
global and encourage teams speaking several
languages across several continents to work
together.
More than 40 percent of the global
Interbrand list of the 100 top brands use
Office 365 or related cloud productivity
services from Microsoft. (7)
Organizations expect CIOs to fulfill a role that
goes beyond "technical expert". They need
them to provide ongoing, long-term support to
turn digitalization into a competitive advantage
for the company.
Gartner stresses that companies must not only
broaden their digital business strategy, but do
so in a way that truly enables change. CIOs must
therefore be in the best position to ensure these
large-scale migrations meet business needs
and provide tangible and measurable value to
the various entities across the enterprise.
© Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / 5
Why must CIOs and HR managers get along in order to succeed?
The role of CIOs has expanded, considering they must lead the digital charge and live up to not only
the expectations of Executive Management, the different business units, and Human Resources, but
to every single employee!
Market responsiveness brings us to another dimension,
an organizational one: change management. And in
a sense it goes together with yet another dimension:
digital psychology. Change is hard, change scares. And
even with big data and all the other ways we have to
respond fast, change is and remains a human element
that needs to be managed from different angles, not
in the least on the level of making de facto change
and collaboration happen in an increasingly digital
culture where connected business on all levels is a key
challenge." (10)
The migration to cloud computing reaches
every corner of the enterprise, and CIOs are
leading the helm of these initiatives. To provide
real added value, they must be committed to a
long-term process that calls for new behaviors
and improves performance in every aspect
of the company... especially with its most
important productivity driver: people.
By working together with a shared, long-term
goal, CIOs and HR managers can put measures
into action aimed at training employees on an
ongoing basis. The resulting synergistic effect
is sure to pay quick dividends and make the
move to Office 365 a smooth one.
So just how are CIOs and HR managers able to act as the leaders of productivity
for the entire organization?
6 / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / © Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company
HOW CAN YOU SOLVE THE NEW CHALLENGE OF
EMPLOYEES’ RECURRING DIGITAL SKILLS GAP?
Design the training model around the technologies used
As the BYOD trend is becoming more widespread, CIOs are forced to allow company employees
to use their own personal devices. How can traditional training methods adapt to this new cloud
computing reality?
Whatever training solution is adopted, it must be one-size-fits-all, in that it works on any device
and enables viewing on any screen size or resolution. And to tackle the human side of things, HR
managers need to support and promote the solution to ensure widespread adoption.
Give everyone access to training
The training solution must provide employees
the ability to improve their digital skills when and
where they need it, via an intranet or dedicated
portal, on their iPad, mobile phone, or personal
PC, in the office or at home. To ensure their
skills are kept up-to-date, companies must
seize the opportunities promised by cloudbased software.
Provide the quickest route to
training by embedding the solution
within business tools
Single Sign On (SSO) technology addresses
one of the challenges of effective training
by guaranteeing users quick access. With it,
employees can access training on their work
interface and enjoy a seamless and consistent
learning experience across their everyday
business tools..
Keep up with software updates
By implementing a future-proof training solution that is flexible, agile, mobile, and forwardlooking to keep pace with software updates,
and by offering the most comprehensive
course catalog possible, not only are the technical challenges being met, but also the human
ones. Making training available to users as soon
as a new version is released is also key to the
solution's success.
Rally CIOs and HR managers to join
forces in selecting and implementing
the solution
What is needed is a bottom-up approach: as
new technologies develop, new needs emerge
from users. CIOs and HR managers play a crucial
part in how those affected by these fundamental
changes perform. To successfully carry out
their migration plans, CIOs must include user
support throughout the entire process...and
well after. By doing so, the shock that usually
comes with such a change will be softened, and
company productivity will increase.
To ensure workers proactively and regularly
acquire the skills they need, HR managers must
invest in these new training tools and make
them part of the company's way of life.
CIOs and HR managers must join forces in
selecting the solution that will help them meet
their long-term goals.
"Change is happening all around us, in every industry, and at lightning speed. A
company's ability to respond to that change is the most important factor as to
whether or not it will sink or swim. 70% of the companies that were on the Fortune
1000 list a mere 10 years ago have now vanished — unable to adapt to change." (10)
© Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company / Make the move to Office 365 a win-win by training your users! / 7
APPENDIX: REFERENCES
2. MarketsandMarkets Cloud computing market: global forecast 2010 – 2015 (October 2010)
3. Gartner Press Release Gartner Says Access to Digital Talent is Crucial for Digital Strategies to Succeed (May 2014)
4. Harvard Business Review - Business Agility in the Cloud (2014)
5. Gartner - User Survey Analysis: Gartner Consumer Insights – People at Work and Play in 2014
(June 2014)
6. European Commission - Digital Agenda for Europe Scoreboard 2012 - page 95
7. Microsoft - Cloud growth brings new opportunities for profitability in 2014 (January 2014)
8. Microsoft and Morgan Stanley Technology - Media & Telecom Conference (February 2013)
9. Gartner - Flipping to Digital Leadership: The 2015 CIO Agenda (2014)
10.Forrester - 10 Dimensions of Business Agility (September 2013)
For more information or to learn more, visit www.vodeclic.com or call
US and Canada: 1 866 757 3177
France: 33 1 83 64 04 10
Vodeclic, a Skillsoft
collaborative skills.
company, is an enterprise learning solution provider for desktop and
With over 25,000 how-to videos in six languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese
and Mandarin Chinese), we are proud to provide an online training solution designed to help users
enhance their digital, internet and collaborative skills. The solution features exclusive courses and
learning tools for all users, as well as business analytics and APIs for enterprise customers, from
SMB to Fortune 500.
With a 1,568% growth in 5 years, Vodeclic was named one of the most successful new technology
companies in 2014, ranked 22nd in France in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and 105th in the
Technology Fast 500 EMEA.
36 rue Jules Verne, 92300 Levallois-Perret, France
Phone: FR: 33 1 83 64 04 10 US: 1 866 757 3177
Website : www.vodeclic.com
Vodeclic is a registered trademark of Vodeclic SAS. Copyright © Vodeclic, A Skillsoft Company- White Paper: Wake up to the digital skills gap! Photo Credit: © Fotolia - 2014 - All rights reserved.
1. Gartner - Top 10 CIO Business and Technology Priorities (2013)