Rebecca Gibson |
This article first appeared in the Summer 2017 issue of The Record.
FMC Technologies, which merged with Technip to become TechnipFMC in January 2017, provides systems and technologies for subsea, onshore and offshore projects in the gas and oil industries.
Prior to merging with Technip, FMC Technologies had 14,500 employees and operated 29 major production facilities and services bases in 18 countries. To streamline operations and help its employees work more productively, the company opted to move to Microsoft Office 365 running on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, and Office 2016.
“A key objective at our organisation is to improve efficiencies in our workforce through technology,” says Zachary Curry, director of Enterprise Architecture and Innovation at FMC Technologies. “We needed more flexibility and standardisation in order to better serve our customers globally.”
Initially, FMC Technologies launched an in-house pilot to move around 100 users from its existing legacy technology to Office 365 over a four-month period. The company then decided to engage Microsoft expert Avanade to manage the full migration and move 17,000 users, 12,000 desktops and 30,000 mailboxes to the new digital workplace platform.
The Avanade team leveraged PowerShell scripting, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and the Accelerate IP tool to automatically schedule and execute the mailbox and desktop migrations.
“The Avanade team had a flexible approach and great willingness to work together to meet our objectives,” says Curry.
Concurrent to the Office 365 deployment project, Avanade also upgraded FMC Technologies’ desktops from Microsoft Office 2010 and Office 2013 to Office 2016. The company used Microsoft Click-to-Run, a streaming and virtualisation deployment tool, to simplify the installation phase.
“The talent Avanade brought to the table was exceptional,” Curry comments. “The team understood our needs and worked with us to resolve issues in a pragmatic fashion.”
Avanade took less than six months to migrate employees to Office 365 and Office 2016, completing the project on time and within budget.
“This is one of the larger projects FMC Technologies has ever done, a shining example of a large-scale endeavour,” says Jake Dominquez, CIO at FMC Technologies. “It demonstrates that we can successfully work together with Avanade.”