Client story Transformation at Cub: Saving Thousands of Hours Per Year & Improving the Grocery Retail Experience
Client
Cub Foods is a grocery store chain that has been based in Minnesota and Illinois for over fifty years.
Industry: Retail
Challenge
Modernize the workplace for a more seamless employee experience and remove barriers to productivity.
Outcomes
Implementing Microsoft 365 saved hundreds of hours a week through increased collaboration and communication. The improved SSO identity management integration also shaved weeks off project delivery timelines.
Solutions: Customer experience, Consulting services, Digital workplace, Managed services, Microsoft 365, Storage
Cub Foods put technology at the center of its business strategy — leading to outcomes like massive efficiency gains, a launchpad for data differentiation and more.
The vision: A modern workplace and digital-first grocery retail experience
CIO Luke Anderson was hired at Cub with a specific purpose: to build a forward-thinking IT team and a retail-specific technology environment (separate from its parent company, UNFI). Additionally, Cub recognized the importance of having technology at the forefront of the customer experience to set itself apart from the competition.
To fulfill this objective, Cub needed an end-to-end plan and strategy for migration, adoption and change management. Cub chose to partner with Insight due to our strategic expertise across the Microsoft® stack, in mergers and acquisitions, and managed services.
Obviously, projects are always going to have issues, and when projects have issues, the thing that makes them still work out is the relationship you have between the service provider and the clients, and we felt like our relationship with Insight could grow strong enough to really weather any turmoil that we might go through on the projects.”
Luke Anderson
Chief Information Officer, Cub
A strategic journey
Part of working on Cub’s digital transformation was determining where to start to set the company up for success as the process continued. While modernization can mean a series of projects, they are all part of the journey to getting organizations to where they want to be. Cub’s journey began with a five-week assessment to determine where it was on its digital transformation and analyzed its current Microsoft environment.
After the initial assessment, a blueprint was developed to put Cub on the path toward its goals and outline the future phases of modernization. Additionally, because this was going to be the first major tech overhaul in recent memory for many of the employees, Insight helped with organizational change management and ensuring the solution was accessible to internal teammates.
Leveraging Microsoft to kick off transformative change
To have a successful modernization journey, Cub needed a strong foundation to build its technology investment. First, Insight implemented Microsoft Active Directory to allow for a smooth Single Sign-On (SSO) experience for employees. Cub also wanted Microsoft 365, which provided a rich library of tools for internal teams to leverage for their individual and collaborative work. As these changes were being made, additional solutions such as managed services were discussed and ultimately leveraged as part of the project. Managed services help organizations get the most out of their investment through guidance and optimization efforts, including access to Insight’s service desk.
The outcome: Streamlined collaboration, communication and project delivery
The implementation of Microsoft 365 has modernized the way Cub Foods employees work, with a positive impact reaching every corner of the company. The upgrade allows for more real-time collaboration between internal teams, and the change has allowed for easier sharing and version control of documents. Additionally, the SSO implementation means that future apps will be usable sooner, on login, rather than needing development time for identity management, too. The support and managed services have offloaded continuous management tasks, which has allowed for Cub’s small IT team to focus on their continued transformation.
Looking toward the future, Cub is eager to dig into data modernization next. Once it modernizes its data warehouse environment, the company will be able to leverage impressive analytics tools. Currently, customer data is also fragmented, and a plan is in place to consolidate the data for a more complete picture of the company’s customers, allowing for personalized customer interactions with Cub.
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By Insight Editor / 18 Apr 2023 / Topics: Consulting services Customer experience Storage Microsoft 365
