Inkjet & Digital Printing

An out-of-the-box digital workplace for SMBs: Konica Minolta adds to Workplace Go solution

Friday 19. March 2021 - New enhancements include the full integration of Microsoft Teams and a new design that is based on SharePoint Modern Experience. The new version is designed to meet businesses needs for communication, collaboration,

Konica Minolta is pleased to announce a new version of its Workplace Go template solution for SMBs — a modern “out-of-the-box” Intranet solution with extensive collaboration features. productivity and social networking even better and faster than before.
Workplace Go is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that enables companies—no matter their size—to build a modern, customised digital workplace based on Microsoft 365 that includes a modern Intranet, as well as extensive collaboration features. It includes two services: An “out-of-the-box” template for small- and medium-sized businesses for up to 300 users, as well as a “full custom design solution” for medium and larger enterprises (101 to 20,000 employees).
An “out-of-the-box” digital workplace for SMBs
Unlike the previous version, the new “out-of-the-box” template for SMBs now has Microsoft Teams integrated as standard. While Microsoft Teams has a great number of advantages for day-to-day collaboration, only the integration of Microsoft Teams into the Workplace Go template can provide companies with the real added value of a comprehensive solution for collaboration and Intranet. This is due to template consisting of a homepage that functions as the company’s “living newsletter”, a new employee directory page (“My Colleagues”), a self-organisation site for each employee (“personal board”), an Intranet site for storing documents—either in department-specific sub-pages and/or in the form of a general library for the entire company—and a collaboration site that displays a clear overview of the company’s teams — based on Microsoft Teams. An extensive search feature enables users to search in stored files and contacts, as well as in Microsoft Teams. The template therefore combines all of the functions of Microsoft 365 as well as those of the company’s own applications in one easy-to-use interface.
Workplace Go is based on native SharePoint Online. For this reason, some companies may wonder why they can’t just create their own digital workspaces using SharePoint instead of using Workplace Go. The key advantage of Workplace Go is that the “out-of-the-box” template enables small- and medium-sized businesses to set up their digital workplace in just a few days, thus saving them a lot of time and money, as well as reducing the workload of their IT staff. It gives smaller companies the opportunity to have their own modern Intranet solution, as well as giving them access to a wide range of collaboration features that normally only larger businesses can afford. This solution gives SMBs with up to 300 users quick and easy access to a ready-made Intranet and collaboration solution, more or less “out-of-the-box”. All they need to do is add their branding and corporate design. The “out-of-the-box” template is available either as a stand-alone service or in an integrated Workplace Hub version.
Fully customised and individual digital workplaces for larger businesses
Larger customers (101 to 20,000 employees) will also benefit from using Workplace Go instead of just using native SharePoint Online instances. For these customers, Konica Minolta offers a “full custom design solution”. Workplace Go also offers an array of pre-configured SharePoint templates that companies can use to create their individual digital workplace solution. French company REALITES is already using these templates and, by doing so, saves valuable time on setup and design and saves time in comparison to using native SharePoint instances.
Another key advantage here is that the digital workplace will always remain neat and tidy. In larger companies with 300 or more employees, the native SharePoint Online environment often becomes disorganised over time as unstructured information accumulates and pages change and become difficult to find. With Workplace Go, the customer has a clearly structured digital workplace that even includes a variety of pre-configured site templates for creating new sites. This means that they do not need to start from scratch, saving them both time and money in the initial phases of the project thanks to Workplace Go.
Reduced maintenance and administrative workload for IT teams when using Workplace Go
What’s more, using Workplace Go allows companies to save time and money on maintenance. Microsoft 365 updates are applied automatically to the customer’s Workplace Go with no extra effort required from the IT staff, leaving them free to focus on other tasks.
There is also no need for a SharePoint architect on the customer side. The IT admin of a client company only needs to have “SharePoint Online Power User” skills to maintain the user rights and content settings in Workplace Go. While this is especially helpful for SMBs, where there is often no dedicated IT team, it also helps to reduce the workload of the IT admin in larger companies.
All in all, Workplace Go has a responsive design that allows end users to access corporate information and collaborate with each other anywhere, anytime and from any device.