How HarborOne reimagines virtual communication with Surface Hubs
 |
Focus on: Empower Employees, Engage Customers |
2017 marks HarborOne’s centennial anniversary. Founded in 1917 as Brockton Credit Union, the 100-year-old community bank serves the Brockton, Massachusetts area and surrounding cities. The company remained a community-based credit union for several decades before adjusting its charter three years ago to officially become HarborOne Bank. Now with 390 employees, HarborOne Bank has established fourteen branches across the southeastern portion of the state, in addition to maintaining its headquarters in Brockton.
True to the company’s stated mission of “total commitment to our customers, our communities and our colleagues,” HarborOne’s digital transformation empowers employees to offer better service and a strong sense of community.
Identifying the digital needs of a community-focused companyAs the company grew and evolved, HarborOne developed a company-wide need to increase efficiency and productivity while strengthening communication. Securing a digital platform that could easily organize, transfer, and share information between offices was a significant requirement for the bank’s push toward organizational efficiency. The company aimed to empower their employees to easily share information and have opportunities to collaborate more effectively. “The idea was to make collaboration and information sharing more efficient across the entire enterprise,” Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Wayne Dunn explained.
The bank also needed a reliable virtual platform that could facilitate remote trainings, meetings, and collaboration opportunities. Finding a digital solution for the mounting costs and travel time associated with commuting between offices would not only save time and money, but would immediately improve processes across the organization. The company determined that Microsoft offered the products and resources that best supported HarborOne’s needs, and could most effectively enable their digital transformation.
Discovering a collaborative digital solution with the Surface Hub In 2008, the bank began their company-wide Microsoft rollout with Microsoft Office, using apps such as SharePoint and the Office Communication Server platform to enhance their business processes. Most recently, with the help from Red Thread, HarborOne expanded their digital transformation by upgrading to Skype for Business and installing Surface Hubs in their offices to meet the company’s modern communication needs. The bank’s Surface Hub rollout utilizes the device’s tools, resources, and added capabilities to improve the bank’s internal business efficiency. “When we were introduced to the Surface Hub, we thought it was a perfect fit,” said Dunn.
The company installed three Surface Hubs at their headquarter office, and one Surface Hub at each of their fourteen branches. Though the bank had used video conferencing tools before, the Surface Hub offered a more streamlined, integrated digital solution that made communication and collaboration much easier. “The meeting is already set up, it’s on the board—one touch opens up the Skype session and before you know it, you’re collaborating,” explained Dunn. Microsoft’s technology expands the possibilities of communication in virtual conferencing, allowing employees to work strategically and collaboratively to from their own offices.
Optimizing resources to streamline new company initiativesAfter putting Microsoft products and platforms in place to move HarborOne towards their mission of increasing productivity, the company had the opportunity to test the results of their nearly decade-long digital transformation. In 2016, HarborOne implemented a new customer relationship management system for all fourteen branch locations. Using a combination of remote and on-site training, the company used their new Surface Hubs to provide support and guidance to their employees during the transition.
Thanks to Surface Hub’s user-friendly interface and HarborOne’s familiarity with Microsoft technology, employees learned quickly and navigated their devices quite easily. As expected, using the Surface Hubs significantly cut down on training time and lowered expenses by reducing the need to travel between branches.
Exploring opportunities for future digital transformation To push their digital transformation even one step further, the company is currently in the beginning stages of another Microsoft-inspired company-wide rollout—this time with Windows 10. HarborOne currently uses Windows 7 and Office 2013 at the majority of their branches, but plans to transition the entire company to Windows 10 and Office 2016 by the end of the year. In addition, HarborOne currently uses Skype’s integration with a third-party multimodal call center solution. This allows customers and employees to either communicate by online chat or phone utilizing Skype as the foundation. The bank has plans to also implement a video chat option later this year, utilizing the Skype platform to provide customers with a more engaging and individualized banking experience.
“I cannot say enough good things about these devices,” says Dunn of the Surface Hub rollout. “They are the perfect fit for this organization.” Indeed, the company’s digital transformation is well on its way. With the help of Microsoft’s innovative technology, HarborOne Bank is set to continue revolutionizing its company with Surface Hub’s internal efficiency support, Skype for Business’s customer-facing service, and by migrating entirely to Office 2016 and Windows 10 by the end of 2017.
Related Content
