Piraeus Bank makes thousands of employees connected and empowered from the first 'hello.' The bank builds on the collective strengths of every team member by expanding Microsoft Teams with Viva Connections. The employee experience hub helps strengthen company culture and foster connections among employees, where everyone can feel included. Employees can now make the most of their workday, no matter where they are.
Piraeus Bank is Greece’s leading bank in terms of customer loans and deposits. Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, it soon needed to rearchitect and simplify a very complex legacy technology environment, connect teams working from different cities and countries, while at the same time enabling a massive business transformation.
“We have become much larger, with different mindsets, cultures, and systems,” says Haris Margaritis, Group Chief Information Officer at Piraeus Bank.
“An organization is as good as the people that it can attract—that’s why we need to transform and make sure we offer more to our current and future employees.”
Haris Margaritis, Group Chief Information Officer, Piraeus Bank
Creating authentic connections in modern teams
Piraeus Bank then looked to technology to help overcome these challenges and establish an inclusive, empowering workplace. Before the pandemic, they had already started digitizing teams and processes with Microsoft. To innovate further, the bank stakeholders sought to integrate dispersed internal sites and communication tools to instill new ways of working and connecting all teams.
“We previously used an intranet site that could only be accessed on-premises. What we needed was a unified platform that people could use from anywhere,” shares Aggeliki Dede, Director of HR Analytics and Systems Solutions at Piraeus Bank. “Our goal was to upgrade how we share information and provide communication resources.”
“In Piraeus Bank, communicating regularly and effectively is one of the key pillars of our corporate culture framework,” shares Angelina Koutsomitopoulou, Senior Director of Organizational Development & Internal Communications at Piraeus Bank. “Integrating Microsoft Viva Connections in our Microsoft Teams platform is a significant step forward in our journey to shift from traditional banking internal communication towards a tech-savvy, open, inclusive and trusting way of information sharing and collaboration”.
To create the desired authentic connections among modern teams, Piraeus Bank extended their existing Microsoft Teams platform with the support of Microsoft’s customer service specialists and a cross-functional team of in-house experts from Group Technology and Group Human Resources.
Curated experience for a productive workday
Within a few months, a new internal site became the bank’s hub for business updates, industry news, employee success stories, and team conversations. “We custom-branded it as ‘yello’, a play on ‘hello’ and ‘yellow’, which is our brand color,” says Angelina Koutsomitopoulou. “We built a new habit for everyone to start their day by going to the site, checking chats and updates, and revisiting it throughout the day.”“In Piraeus Bank, our people have access to a platform to responsively share information, news and ideas and for different views to be openly discussed. It is a means for our people to stay connected and be engaged!”
Angelina Koutsomitopoulou, Senior Director, Organizational Development & Internal Communications, Piraeus Bank
Viva Connections is available 24/7 on any device. Users access it through the already-familiar Microsoft Teams interface; onboarding takes only a few seconds. “Viva Connections provides a simple and effective way to stay connected and productive,” confirms Angelina Koutsomitopoulou. “It saves time as content creators can publish updates quickly and users get all the information they need in one place.”
Making work more secure and meaningful
The integrated platform uses tools available in Microsoft 365, simplifying maintenance, reducing costs, and improving Piraeus Bank's security.
"We benefit from advanced security management features in authentication, threat protection, data loss prevention and more thanks to the cutting-edge Microsoft cloud services," says Haris Margaritis. “As we continue our cloud adoption journey, we will unlock even more security capabilities, such as advanced behavioral analytics and machine learning, that wouldn’t be possible with an on-premises infrastructure. We feel that this will become a main differentiator of our services in the market.”
“As we continue our cloud adoption journey, we will unlock even more security capabilities, such as advanced behavioral analytics and machine learning, that wouldn’t be possible with an on-premises infrastructure.”
Haris Margaritis, Group Chief Information Officer, Piraeus Bank
The bank continues to broaden its technology ecosystem to stay relevant and attract talent in search of meaningful work in a dynamic work environment, while improving its operational efficiency and supporting its ambitious environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda. “We are a pioneer in European banking because we make our employees feel the impact of their work towards society’s prosperity, the protection of the environment and the support of a sustainable tomorrow for everyone,” says Haris Margaritis.
To continue innovating, Piraeus Bank’s future plans include ‘yello’ enhancement and extending the use of Microsoft Teams and Viva connections even further by integrating them to the production processes and line of business applications.
“We know that we need to adapt our business to the changing times with new technology and tools to stay ahead. An organization is as good as the people that it can attract—that’s why we will continue to transform and make sure we offer more to our current and future employees and customers,” concludes Haris Margaritis.
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