Comal.ch
«This new solution enables Comal.ch to express their task distribution and continuous learning philosophy. »
Massimiliano Talento, Finance manager Comal.ch
The story in brief:
Mainly for reasons linked to its internal organisation and working methods, the company needed a new IT solution that would provide direct, open and flexible access to its immense know-how and the specific skills of individual employees.
Comal.ch is a multidisciplinary, cross-industry structural design company with a close network of branches, over 70 years’ business experience and a firm focus on environmental issues. Direct and continuous access to knowledge and historical know-how is indispensable for the company, which has a strong interdisciplinary approach. Through its five branches, which are closely spread throughout the region, Comal.ch offers a broad portfolio of partners ranging from civil, agricultural, environmental and forestry engineers to technicians, economists and communication experts.
The challenge of new forms of collaboration
Mainly for reasons linked to its internal organisation and working methods, the company needed a new IT solution that would provide direct, open and flexible access to its immense know-how and the specific skills of individual employees. The solution also needed to facilitate interaction and communication between staff in order to increase the quality of their work. By avoiding unnecessary business trips and promoting remote working, it should also help to protect the environment, enhance the region and improve the employees’ quality of work. Massimiliano Talento added that: “The new IT solution also needed to be characterised by a strong ecological focus.”
Solutions: a commitment to openness
The company changed its way of working by introducing Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint and Azure, which enabled it to implement its chosen philosophy of openness. Users enjoy enormous freedom and can form spontaneous groups in order to discuss specific project-related issues, share experiences or provide internal training. Following the principle that everything is visible and available to everyone, all information except financial data is accessible. The IT structure is therefore based on transparency and mutual trust. It provides the opportunity to develop interesting, constructive and productive work dynamics, including through Microsoft applications such as Delve and ERP Navision.
For a company whose work is multifaceted, the ability to be everywhere at the same time is extremely important. To work on a building site under the best possible conditions, technicians need to be able to access project data in real time, contact design engineers quickly and directly, and solve specific problems through instant communication with an inhouse expert. Thanks to SharePoint and Teams, it is possible to speak to all the experts required for a specific project at the same time, thereby shortening work and handover times regardless of where the project is based. Azure services made it possible to integrate the company’s entire network.
The project was carried out in direct collaboration with Swisscom, from consultation to the engineering stage. Comal.ch wanted to find a single contact partner who could provide and manage all IT services, from infrastructure to service management and maintenance to Microsoft licences, with managed services to be added in the future. It also valued the security of servers located in Microsoft data centres in Switzerland. “Working with Swisscom was extremely enjoyable. Thanks to its substantial expertise and flexibility, we were able to implement the project in the shortest possible time and without any hindrances,” says Massimiliano Talento.
“It was a major challenge, but the results are excellent both for the customer and in terms of project performance. Never before have we been able to work so easily and, at the same time, sustainably.” Now Comal.ch can concentrate even better on its core business.