Odda Kommune in Norway is one of the 90+ municipalities in the Nordic region that decided to go Google with Avalon Solutions.

Customer profile:

 

Odda is a municipality in Hordaland county, Norway.

 

The 1,616-square kilometer municipality is the 42th largest by area in Norway, with a population of 7,025.

Click here to download the Norwegian version of the case study.

Leaving on-premise solutions

Before making the decision that a fundamental IT change was needed, Odda was using an old Microsoft environment, 100% on-premise. The setup was becoming increasingly less efficient and the municipality’s IT team decided to explore their options for moving to the cloud.

 

Odda reached out to Google and received free G Suite licenses for a limited period of time to perform a test, and find out if Google’s tools are what the municipality needs to succeed.

“Odda municipality asked for a new collaboration platform and an office suite that could digitalize our work, while helping achieve the goals our municipality set for the years ahead,” says Andreas Sigvaldsen, CIO at Odda Kommune responsible for the project.

 

“The choice had to be Google because of the future-oriented, easy-to-use functionality and intuitive user interface, superior cost to value ratio, stable and functional cloud services, super easy license structure, and little training needs.”

The pilot

Avalon Solutions was selected as a partner for the pilot project. With over 90 municipalities in the Nordic region choosing Avalon Solutions as their partner, Avalon’s experience in the public sector made the choice a natural one.

 

The work started in October of 2016. Despite the fact that it was just a test with a limited number of users involved, Avalon Solutions approached it in the same way as every regular project.

 

Avalon’s experts sat down with the Odda team to discuss the metrics, to be used for evaluating the pilot. The project was launched in November 2016 and was scheduled to end after four months, in the end of February 2017.

 

 

 

The most important part of the partner’s role is listening and addressing the needs and wishes we have as a customer. Together with the skills and experience from previous projects that Avalon Solutions managed, they were able to give a great approach and solutions in change management, configuration, migration, and training.

 

Andreas Sigvaldsen, CIO at Odda Kommune

The cooperation between Odda Kommune and Avalon Solutions was going smoothly and the municipality was progressing quickly through the phases. Everything was going according to the plan and Odda’s test team was adopting Google’s solutions with no issues or delays. Just before the Global Go Live phase, the Odda Kommune team decided that the pilot was already a success and the agreed metrics and goals were met.

 

The pilot’s success  allowed Odda to tick all the boxes on their IT wish list.

 

 

 

Google just works and it’s available all the time, everywhere. When I go to meetings I share and stream presentations directly from my phone. The computer stays at the office. Videoconferencing is now done on the move with Hangouts! It doesn’t get easier than that.

 

Andreas Sigvaldsen, CIO at Odda Kommune

 

 

 

The decision was made: Odda Kommune was going Google.

 

“Our meetings start with going through the agenda instead of fixing technical issues with sound or video,” says Sigvaldsen. “Employees increasingly use video conferencing and chat, and still demand new applications. The number of travel days has been reduced.”

The implementation

Odda decided to open bidding for the full G Suite implementation in a public tender.

 

In October 2017 it was announced that Avalon Solutions won and will continue work on Odda’s transformation.

 

Avalon Solutions’ experts that successfully walked the municipality through the pilot sat again with Odda’s IT team to create a plan for a full G Suite rollout.

The planning phase for project covering 1000 users is now complete and the project has moved into the Core IT phase.

 

Odda’s G Suite rollout is scheduled for completion at the beginning of March 2018.

The advantage we have with this project is that Odda municipality understands the importance of change management. Going Google is not about technology, it’s about people. The biggest focus for this project is on the people who work at Odda municipality, and this is led by the Management Team.

 

Shirin Dalin

Project Manager at Avalon Solutions

Now we can finally focus on service quality and digital workflows.

 

We want to build and implement new cooperation solutions for our citizens, business, and our employees.

 

Andreas Sigvaldsen

CIO at Odda Kommune