Mining company relies on Microsoft Teams to foster its cultural transformation

A complex and challenging worldwide business

Vale is not only one of the world’s largest mining companies—it’s also one of the most diverse. What began in 1942 as an iron ore mine in Brazil now extends to remote regions in Canada, Mozambique, Indonesia, and Malaysia, just to name a few. Global expansion has led to huge growth for Vale, now one of the world’s largest producers of iron ore and nickel. But as operations grew, so did the need for tools that could keep the company’s vast network better connected. These connections would become even more important as Vale focused on a cultural transformation into a more collaborative, agile, and digital company. 

Vale decided to adopt a more efficient collaboration platform about five years ago with Office 365. Vale followed this with a migration from Skype for Business on-premises to Skype for Business Online. It was during this migration that one of the advantages of Microsoft Teams would later become evident. 

First, there was the upgrade path. Before Vale could move to Skype for Business Online, the company would first have to upgrade the Skype for Business client in close to 40,000 computers to its latest version. This turned out to be a major undertaking that took more than two months to complete. To add to the challenge, a global inventory assessment uncovered upward of 35 different versions of Skype for Business running on a wide range of devices. 

With the later upgrade to Teams, this client upgrade path would be greatly simplified. Any devices still on Skype for Business could be moved directly to Teams. Plus, the Teams client is updated automatically by Microsoft using an independent update strategy that relieves IT departments of that responsibility. And when Skype for Business Online service ends next year, Vale will be ready.

Innovative ways to tame bandwidth challenges

When the company moved to Skype for Business Online, the plan was to enable chat for all employees and then gradually enable other features, like voice, through a series of pilots. 

The reason for the staged deployment was simple: Vale’s IT team members knew they had to prioritize the company’s systems data traffic over its complex network, even under the most difficult conditions. 

To help guide Skype for Business Online bandwidth requirements, the team had been using the Skype for Business Network Assessment Tool. But the tool did not account for what would turn out to be a rapid adoption of calling and video features by Vale employees. With each pilot, bandwidth consumption grew, creating more and more issues across the network. 

Another Microsoft tool—the Call Quality Dashboard—was used by Vale’s IT team to pinpoint issues, which they then shared with local teams for remediation. One of the most common issues was performance-related problems due to proxies. Vale initiated proxy bypasses for all Skype traffic. But before that, the company had to update many of the firewalls across the network. 

Such challenges were even more complex in remote sites such as those in Asia and Africa. “Establishing reliable connections in countries like Mozambique, for example, has been challenging due to limited network coverage,” explains Márcia Costa, Executive Manager, Technology Infrastructure Services at Vale. The team did as much as possible to update the company’s network infrastructure. But managing external limitations would require new technologies. And that’s what ultimately prompted the move to Microsoft Teams.

A huge leap in quality and efficiency

One of the first advantages that Vale noticed about Teams over Skype for Business was its ability to use networking resources more efficiently. “We immediately saw the benefits of Teams as a more efficient platform,” says Costa. 

Considering the huge cultural transformation that Vale is going through, Teams brought great advantage as a productivity and collaboration tool. “A lot of employees had become increasingly frustrated with the sheer volume of email and having to switch back and forth between Outlook and SharePoint,” explains Costa. Vale used Teams to solve that problem beautifully, providing a more unified platform that makes it easier for its employees to navigate and work across different channels. Compared to Skype for Business, Teams also offered what Vale considered to be a far better mobile experience, including one-click access to Teams meetings. 

Vale began its planning for Teams in August 2018 and rolled it out to all employees in March 2019. Just about four months later, Vale moved to Teams-only mode, a transition that it completed flawlessly in just a few days over one weekend. 

As with its Skype for Business transition, Vale kicked off its Teams deployment with limited functionality, gradually adding access to more features and apps once it confirmed that it could meet the network requirements. The additional functionality included access to Microsoft Stream and the ability to share files in Teams via chat. Vale also implemented VPN split tunneling, which included upgrades to VPNs at specific sites. But with the main network issues already addressed, Vale encountered few significant technical issues along the way. 

“Our main challenge moving to Teams was less technical and more about ensuring that we properly trained everyone on using the platform,” says Hugo Ferreira, Global IT Project Manager. To support employees, Vale launched a multifaceted change management program, including online seminars and local Teams champions. Vale also created a help desk bot, which employees access directly from Teams. With an effective change management program in place around the world, Teams adoption has grown steadily, quickly matching the 35,000 Vale employees who had been using Skype for Business. Today, more than 55,000 employees are active on Teams.

A perfect fit for today’s COVID-19 challenges 

As with many organizations, Teams has proven especially valuable to Vale during the COVID-19 crisis. The company uses the platform to facilitate access to Teams live events, which are used extensively by management to communicate COVID-19–related plans and processes to large groups. “Teams was crucial when we had to move thousands of workers overnight to the home office regime while the pandemic was beginning to hit Brazil. We could act very fast to ensure our employees’ safety and it would have been much more difficult without a comprehensive platform like Teams,” says Ferreira. 

Video calls and conferencing capabilities have also proven valuable. Vale originally enabled video for a group of just 5,000 employees but has since enabled it for almost everyone using Teams. “A lot of people requested video as soon as they started working remotely so they could have face-to-face contact with their teams,” says Ferreira. 

Vale also enabled Teams meetings in conference rooms where Poly’s video conferencing system is used in conjunction with a Teams interoperability solution. For further collaboration options, Vale is evaluating Microsoft Teams Rooms systems in Canada and Microsoft Surface Hub devices. 

Vale plans to extend the benefits of Teams to even more of its workforce across the network, including field workers. “We still have a lot of operating groups that don’t have access to Teams-enabled devices. We want to provide access to these new communications channels in a way that’s productive,” says Costa. 

The company has made it a top priority to achieve that balance. Costa concludes, “We want to provide Teams to as many employees as possible. It’s part of our new normal and a better way of working.” 

Find out more about Vale on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

All Photo Credit: Ricardo Teles/Vale