Change is vital to The Salvation Army’s future, says Liz Wingrove, Head of IT Projects, UK and Ireland.
“Our culture is based on face-to-face interaction, and we often use paper documents. To keep pace with the growing demands for our work in communities, we have to rethink how we do things. Above all, we must share our learning and ideas nationally and globally. For effective collaboration, we need good technology tools.”
For many years, The Salvation Army deployed the same business software platform throughout the world. However, users expressed increasing concern about the platform’s effectiveness, particularly as a collaboration tool.
International Headquarters responded by commissioning a report to assess future technology options. The report recommended that the Army globally should switch to Microsoft Office 365.
Office 365 is being introduced by the Army in different ways across the world. Some territories are replacing business tools in a ‘big bang’ approach. UK and Ireland decided to change more gradually over a three-year
period. For the first phase – targeted for completion by the end of 2020 – 7,000 email users will be migrated to Microsoft Outlook, desktops upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and personal documents converted to OneDrive.
Army leaders in UK and Ireland were looking for more than just a technology rollout, however. They wanted to understand how the Army could be better equipped for its mission.