With Microsoft Teams, Yapı Kredi fulfills its vision of secure remote work and robust collaboration

Yapı Kredi adopted a hybrid working culture with the pandemic and made another important transformation: Microsoft Teams, which was expanded with additional features for a total of 16.000 employees, added a new dimension to the way the company does business. The solution, which digitizes intra-team and inter-team communication with its team structure, individual and collective chat features, lays the basis for a modern way of working with its wide range of features from instant meetings to integrated applications.

Majority-owned by Koç Holding, Yapı Kredi took this transformation on board as part of the decision for a company-wide switch to Microsoft Teams. In preparation, various business units underwent a product evaluation to decide among three options. The outcome of the assessment was in favor of Microsoft Teams, with particular strength in covering customer meetings.

Project teams note that the most effective and easy way to contact users, especially those outside the organization, proved to be Microsoft Teams. Witnessing the high usage rate of the application due to its end-user friendliness, project teams state that some other applications failed to meet the security threshold and that Microsoft Teams stood out in the evaluation due to its wide range of capabilities.

The transition, kicked off in May 2020 with the pandemic-forced remote working, was expanded to the whole business as of March 2021.

At Yapı Kredi, approximately 7.000 employees work remotely. Hence Microsoft Teams has become one of the most important tools for both remote and hybrid working groups. Highlighting Microsoft Teams` capability in providing fast and flexible meeting opportunities with its cooperation and communication features, project teams noted that meeting outcomes can be viewed simultaneously thanks to the working groups, strongly supported by productivity tools, and thus this proves to be a considerable improvement in the way of working.

In addition to being a powerful collaboration tool, Microsoft Teams also meets the end-to-end communication needs of Yapı Kredi with meeting room systems and phone operator. The project teams performing the transition emphasize that such an integration is not so easy in other products, and that Microsoft Teams allows them to conduct business meetings, phone calls, and instant messaging at the same time.

A different expansion thanks to unprecedented governance efforts

During the structuring of the project, Yapı Kredi engaged in yet another great collaboration with Microsoft. The teams that came together under this governance program worked closely with Microsoft before the expansion to identify the features to be activated, apply security restrictions, meet network needs, and comply with corporate and holding company standards by setting authorization levels. Teams Governance Planning, as it was called internally, allowed for an optimal Teams configuration for the organization in the light of the best practices recommended by Microsoft. After an intensive project stage, Yapı Kredi, the first organization in Türkiye to complete the expansion of Teams under such a comprehensive program, launched the platform to ensure seamless, reliable operations end to end. 

Secure communication with DLP, ease of use with integrations

To ensure the highest level of security for the solution, Yapı Kredi takes advantage of various security components offered by Microsoft. With Active Directory integration, users can easily access Microsoft Teams applications using their corporate I.Ds. With the Microsoft DLP solution, which is employed to use Microsoft Teams in line with banking regulations, data flowing from all endpoints, including mobile devices, is subject to strict rules. This also prevents data loss in the communication that takes place through Microsoft Teams. Access security is ensured at the highest level using multi-step authentication on mobile and non-bank devices. 

Contributing to the business processes to ensure uninterrupted work of field teams, Microsoft Teams was also integrated with Yapı Kredi's Harmoni Ana Bankacılık application. In addition to offering ease of use, the integration made it possible to create Microsoft Teams meetings through Harmoni during the pandemic and allows for better tracking and reporting of customer chats.

Another application integrated with Microsoft Teams is KoçHub, the central communication platform for all companies within the Koç Holding Group. From official announcements to various interests of users, the platform brings various holding companies and members of staff together. Believing that Microsoft Teams will play an important role in expanding the use of KoçHub, the project team performed an integration that allows access to KoçHub from within the application.