Tony’s Chocolonely found the best way for employees to work together, thanks to its Microsoft 365 subscription, which includes Microsoft Teams with Vodafone Calling in Microsoft Office 365. The Amsterdam-based company grew quickly, but its original collaboration apps didn’t support its international expansion or its work-life balance ideals. For the Tony’s team, its suppliers, and its “chocofans” and West African partners, it’s all about building real and transparent relationships.
Keeping it simple: One team, one communication system
The masterstroke for Tony’s was consolidating telephony with Office 365 in April 2019. Tony’s employees can now access the company landline through Teams with the Vodafone Calling in Office 365 solution. For customer contact, Teams is extended with the Anywhere365 Contact Center. Because the solution interoperates with Salesforce, incoming calls can be logged in the company’s customer relationship management system for inclusion in the customer database.
“Using Teams with Vodafone Calling in Microsoft Office 365 amplifies the personal and transparent approach we’re known for,” says van Doorn. “We can talk to our chocofans with full knowledge of their prior backgrounds, orders, and feedback.” Incoming calls automatically route to the best person to handle the call, no matter where that person is, and contact information is included for the convenience of the person receiving the call.
Since implementing Teams, the company has averaged a 10 to 15 percent decrease in its total email volume. Ursem and van Doorn point out that this is happening despite steady company growth. “We’re pushing communication to the channels where it can happen most effectively,” says van Doorn.
The future with cloud computing
The Tony’s IT team is just four people, including van Doorn. That lean number falls in line with the company’s long-term strategy. Tony’s started with an on-premises infrastructure but migrated to the cloud about 10 years ago. “We were growing rapidly and needed to be scalable,” recalls van Doorn. “And we also looked at the growing number of relationships we were managing—both customers and suppliers, plus our rapidly expanding staff. We felt that committing to a complicated IT landscape in terms of connections, interfaces, and equipment would have been a risk.”
Cross-functional collaboration also underpins daily and strategic operations at Tony’s Chocolonely. Teamwork fans out from internal teams to a swath of partners that support different aspects of the Tony’s operation: web developers, product wrapper suppliers, retail stores, and many others. In fact, Tony’s Chocolonely now expects its suppliers to collaborate in Teams. “We’ve implemented the entire Microsoft 365 suite,” van Doorn. “All of our data is on SharePoint. With this modern working platform, we can easily collaborate with our partners, suppliers, and with each other.” The company also hopes to reduce business travel expenses by 10 percent now that so much collaboration takes place in the cloud.
For the people behind the Tony’s Chocolonely brand, it comes down to relationships. “By growing long-term relationships and paying a higher price—above the market price plus the Fairtrade Premium—to West African farmers, we’re trying to create an equal partnership,” says Ursem. “And if we’re performing well, other companies will be inspired to shoulder this responsibility, too.”
So if you are ready for a VoIP system that integrates with Microsoft 365, Motiva VoIP+ is the right tool for you.
