Böllhoff Group – Redefining innovation with modern IT workplaces at the Böllhoff Group.

With 15 product sites around the globe, the Böllhoff Group is a leading expert in 360° joining technology. Its success is built not only on innovation and close customer relationships, but also on sustainable and economically viable solutions delivered across the entire customer value chain. For its IT working environment, Böllhoff was looking to implement a modern and flexible solution that would optimise work processes and significantly improve collaboration among employees. A series of global workshops conducted together with Bechtle, focusing on “Vision & Scope – The digital workplace”, helped define this objective more clearly with Microsoft 365 to be used to modernise processes, security, flexible working and collaboration. The COVID‑19 pandemic further underscored the importance of a future‑oriented solution that supports employees worldwide.

Based on the outcomes of the “Vision & Scope” workshops, Bechtle consolidated the insights gained and deepened Böllhoff’s understanding of Microsoft 365 in further on-site sessions. Together, the teams repeatedly assessed whether Microsoft 365 would deliver the desired added value for Böllhoff, comparing options, identifying opportunities and further developing Böllhoff’s own ideas. The result was a solution tailored to the specific requirements of all locations, designed to create a modern and future-ready working environment. At the same time, a vision for the modern workplace was developed, defining which applications were required and which would be replaced. This included migrating existing video conferencing systems to Microsoft Teams, using OneDrive for data sharing and introducing Exchange as the new email server. The plan was for Microsoft 365 Enterprise applications to gradually replace the previously used tools. Building on this plan, Bechtle and Böllhoff jointly created a roadmap. Together with detailed outlines for the individual sub-projects, this enabled Böllhoff to better estimate the effort involved in the transition and use it as the foundation for the overall project. With this foundation in place, the modern workplace initiative could begin. The first step was the migration to Microsoft Exchange Online, aimed at optimising global email communication and calendar management. This was followed by the introduction of Microsoft Teams as a central platform for meetings, chats and collaboration, as well as the use of OneDrive to enable location-independent sharing of large volumes of data. In addition, Microsoft Intune was implemented to securely manage mobile devices, enforce consistent policies and integrate them into the corporate network. Beyond the technical implementation, Bechtle placed strong emphasis on ensuring that employees actively participated in the change. Beyond the technical implementation, Bechtle placed strong emphasis on ensuring that employees actively participated in the change. Rather than focusing solely on deploying applications, the goal was to help staff recognise early on how their digital workplace would evolve and to involve them in shaping this change. Change management therefore played a central role. A community of Microsoft 365 professionals was established of employees who act as multipliers and actively support the transformation within the organisation. The response exceeded expectations. Instead of the planned 85 participants, almost twice as many colleagues became involved. To this day, they continue to serve as the first point of contact during local rollout activities and help embed the new way of working within their teams.

The modern Microsoft 365–based workplace enables Böllhoff’s global teams to work more efficiently and flexibly. The holistic solution implemented together with Bechtle has accelerated communication, improved the exchange of information and data, and strengthened IT security through advanced device management. As a result, Böllhoff is now able to operate more mobile‑first, respond more flexibly to changing requirements and use the platform as a foundation for further development. In the meantime, the company has even developed its own BöllhoffGPT. Microsoft 365 provides Böllhoff with strong support in actively shaping its future.