Unexpected events can disrupt a company’s operations from one day to the next. Digital tools are now key to ensuring service continuity. Here is how a French leading supplier in the automotive industry, tackled the challenges caused by the Covid-19 crisis by organizing a working from home solution for several thousands of employees across 15 countries.

Security, responsiveness, anticipation: 3 challenges during an emergency

When a health crisis like COVID-19 occurs, the first concern is obviously making sure that employees stay healthy. Next is the matter of business continuity – the arrangements depending on the health measures put in place. For example, this current situation requires many employees to stay at home. A major French Group – a leading supplier in the automotive industry – has been dealing with these matters. It has factories and facilities worldwide, which are located as close as possible to the manufacturers’ assembly plants. Having closed some of its sites, it chose responsiveness by anticipating the implementation of a lockdown, allowing its employees to work from home in the best possible conditions.



The effectiveness of the solution was proven during the first audio conference, which took place less than 24 hours after the requirement was outlined.


 

A comprehensive telework system in record time

To switch 5,000 of the Group’s 18,000 employees to a working-from-home arrangement as quickly as possible, the Group relied on the expertise of Orange Business. Nearly 20 people were mobilized to respond to its needs in Europe and the United States in extremely short time frames. Their actions helped increase the capacity of the Group’s data centers but also increased Internet access capacity and its network bandwidth, so that a working-from-home system was in place for 100% of compatible jobs. Next, the Orange Business teams provided this customer with an audio conferencing solution for a very large number of participants, to allow some or all employees to be able to communicate more easily using audio. The custom Event Conferencing tool allows up to 20,000 simultaneous connections from any device worldwide. “The effectiveness of the solution was proven during the first audio conference, which took place less than 24 hours after the requirement was outlined,” adds the Orange Business account manager.

Employees in constant contact

After implementing business continuity measures, the Group’s management can quickly and easily inform its employees of any new changes to the organization. Teams can continue to collaborate remotely, thanks to the newly arranged network.

5,000 employees working from home