• As Sunway expand its presence across Asia and diversify into new ventures, effective IT systems and productivity platforms are also deployed to enable and support continuous growth.

• Our migration to Microsoft Office 365 in 2019 has allowed our people to collaborate, organise and deliver value to our stakeholders when we want, where we want, and how we want it.

“When people hear ‘Sunway’, they think of brick-and-mortar business. That’s fair, but there’s nothing to stop us from starting our own digital transformation journey. We wanted to change how we collaborate as we grow bigger and more diverse,” said Kevin Khoo, Chief Information Officer at Sunway Group.

The decision to migrate to Microsoft Office 365 in 2019 couldn’t be any more timely. It helped the group navigate through unprecedented disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as most of our people have been receptive to the digital adoption at the time. It allows these people to work from anywhere, anytime and on any device.

In an interview with Microsoft, Kevin recalled it took a little over six months to complete the transferring of huge files and archives from the last 20 years to move our people’s emails to Microsoft Outlook. After the smooth transition of emails, we introduced tools available in Microsoft Office 365 and started using SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, enabling secure file sharing and video calls between internal and external stakeholders alike. 

While our previous business communication platform served the group well during its time, it no longer supported our growth in the increasingly volatile, uncertain and complex business environment. Some of the drawbacks include high cost for video conferencing tools, and that they were not available for the whole group. This resulted in the delays in decision making when key decision makers were unable to attend physical discussions and meetings.

In addition, remote working was only restricted to cloud-based web emails and only limited number of users had access to mobile email app. There were many restrictions when it came to file sharing as well. These challenges demanded a solution. 

“If our employees didn’t have the right programmes and tools, we would face more challenges,” Kevin emphasised. There has to be better communication and a robust platform for all of the employees to work with, hence the decision to adopt Microsoft Office 365 in our transformative journey.

Here are some of the highlights of our transformative journey with Microsoft Office 365 adoption.

Microsoft Teams

• Sunway Leaders Conference 2019 attended by more than 2,000 executives, was made accessible to all Sunway staff via Microsoft Teams’ live – we streamed the event live for the first time in the Group’s history. Employees who were previously unable to attend due to geographical constraints were able to watch the live telecast from their locations or via their mobile devices. 413 attendees from 10 countries joined the live stream.

• Group IT & IT Shared Services  co-authored their respective annual business plans  on one single PowerPoint document, which enabled consolidated inputs from different parties with tracked changes.
• Sunway Property held live broadcast tender briefings with all their tender parties concurrently while maintaining anonymity and allowing Q&As for clarification and interaction. The team estimated that this approach would save them up to 75% of the time spent for traditional briefings, which translate into man-day cost savings of approximately RM100,000 per year.
• Sunway iLabs and Group IT virtually launched the Sunway Innovation Matching Fund (IMF) involving speakers from multiple locations and 140 attendees.

• Sunway Crisis Management, Group HR and various business divisions conducted Business Continuity Plans and various other meetings, discussions, and briefings remotely via Microsoft Teams in the wake of COVID-19 amid the new norm.

Microsoft Yammer

Group IT & IT Shared Services have adopted Microsoft Yammer for internal communications in place of email blasts via dedicated email addresses. The private Yammer group has allowed more interactions amongst internal stakeholders and increase engagement.

Microsoft One Drive

The features of One Drive made it possible for the whole Sunway Group to access to files while working remotely especially during the Movement Control Order and not having to rely on shared drives that are only accessible via Sunway network.

Embracing Microsoft Office 365 as our unified communications and collaboration platform has enabled Sunway to bridge our communication gaps and make information more available to all. Going forward, the plan is to increase the adoption of digital tools across the organisation. This is very much in line with Sunway’s mission to attract and nurture a talented and progressive workforce for the digital era, empowering our people to deliver enhanced value to all stakeholders, innovating to enrich lives for a better tomorrow.