Client profile
Amadeus IT Group is a technology company dedicated to the international travel industry. It offers top-quality technology solutions to help key players in the industry achieve success and shape the future of travel. In 2019, Amadeus processed more than 645 million reservations, and more than 1.9 billion passengers traveled through its systems. The company is listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange and is headquartered in the Spanish capital, although it employs more than 19,000 people in 190 countries. In fact, it takes particular pride in its cultural diversity, with a workforce made up of people from 150 nationalities who speak more than 60 languages.
The challenge
Amadeus NEO provides a more open and personalized digital environment for sharing information across the organization. The platform combines global communication with local relevance, allowing employees to access the content and tools they need in their daily work.
They wanted to create a more engaging digital experience for employees that met the following criteria: it would allow employees to easily personalize their experience to get more relevant content and, at the same time, ensure that global corporate messages reached the entire world; distribute content more effectively through a new knowledge management strategy; and create a more relaxed, more human experience to foster a global and open conversation using social media metaphors that employees would recognize from the platforms they use in their daily lives.
The solution
Amadeus conducted an extensive study involving more than 100 stakeholders to identify the weaknesses of the intranet they were using. That is how they came to the conclusion that they needed a more open and personalized model for sharing information — one that would not only allow employees to access content but also encourage them to create their own.
Amadeus conducted an extensive study involving more than 100 stakeholders to identify the weaknesses of the intranet they were using. That is how they came to the conclusion that they needed a more open and personalized model for sharing information — one that would not only allow employees to access content but also encourage them to create their own.
After evaluating several offerings, Amadeus chose Workforce Empowerment’s Employee Communications*, a platform that is the result of NTT DATA’s expertise in building intranets and solutions for digital work environments based on SharePoint and Office 365. For Amadeus employees, Employee Communications was a natural evolution of the previous intranet they were accustomed to, since it used the same technologies
According to Oscar Sopeña, Employee Communications offered four key features that were critical for Amadeus:
- First, personalization made it possible for content to be tailored to the user based on their profile and preferences, and allowed Amadeus to offer specific content to specific individuals.
- Second, the sidebar menu, designed specifically for Employee Communications, made it much easier to perform certain tasks. “This was essential for us, since users could always find what they needed in this standard menu,” says Sopeña
- The third key feature was the app launcher, thanks to which all apps could be launched directly from the menu. “This was a huge step forward, because it allowed users to create their own work environment,” he explains.
- The fourth feature that ultimately won Amadeus over was TOGO’s native integration with Microsoft Teams
The cost of innovation is lower with a commercial product, but it also takes less time to create value.
The result
The new platform, called NEO, has greatly facilitated communication and the flow of content and applications among its more than 300 groups, using terminology familiar from popular social media platforms, such as “likes” and “followers.”
For us, the user experience was essential. We wanted it to resemble the way we use social media in our daily lives.
NEO makes it easier to have global and open conversations among employees, even with senior executives, which is especially important in a large organization with a presence in many countries.
On NEO, content is promoted based on users’ interests and profiles. Users can follow a specific person or an entire community of employees, making it easy to stay up to date on what’s happening even when working with colleagues who may be in different time zones.
Oscar Sopeña highlights the importance of personalized content to NEO’s success. “It’s a bit like Netflix. We all have the same tool, but with different content on it. People are really using it to personalize their experience,” he says.
Users praise NEO’s sleek, modern design compared to the previous intranet — something he is particularly proud of, since a great deal of effort went into designing a simple user experience.
The most tangible benefit NEO has brought to Amadeus is the increase in user productivity. It now takes less time to complete tasks because NEO makes it easier and faster to find the most relevant information. Specifically, searches are much faster
NEO makes it easier to have open, global conversations among employees, even with senior executives, which is especially important in a large organization with a presence in many countries.
Benefits Summary
Smoother communication
Thanks to NEO, Amadeus can now efficiently distribute global messages throughout the entire organization while also providing information at the local level. This enhanced capability played a particularly important role during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when corporate guidelines related to the pandemic were viewed more than 6,600 times by users
One message, one version
Before implementing the new system, content was copied many times before being distributed, making it difficult to stay up to date. With the current system, content is updated only once.
More open leadership
Amadeus executives have their own profiles to share their news and can customize them according to their preferences, just like any other employee. In addition, they can comment on and follow specific content and people; this makes them more accessible and approachable to employees.
Faster onboarding
By creating a single source of content for new employees, customized by location and role, Amadeus provides them with a more consistent onboarding experience, thereby saving HR teams a week’s worth of work in creating specific pages and materials
Easier to create content
With the previous platform, users needed extensive training to make their pages look good. With the current system, anyone can create content with very little training. Content creators estimate that the process is now 40% faster.
Much more widespread use
About 88% of Amadeus employees regularly access NEO, and the company is now working to make it even more appealing, with initiatives such as private communities and personal blogs
Proven Outcomes
Measured outcomes that demonstrate real impact of Syntphony in the market.
10k
Followed content items
200
Content owners
5k
Likes
10k
Favorites
80%
Employees who have accessed NEO
4k
Employees using NEO daily
What’s new
To ensure that NEO continues to be used regularly by Amadeus employees, the company wants to systematically monitor its usage. Currently, they are using SharePoint’s analytics features, but they are considering using the new Employee Communications analytics module, which was recently launched.
They are also interested in expanding NEO’s current capabilities to collect data from Microsoft Teams through the native integration of Employee Communications and Teams, since many employees already use Teams to share information within their specific workgroups.
More Information
To learn more about how Employee Communications can help your organization, contact your NTT DATA representative or visit: es.nttdata.es
Why Syntphony?
Amadeus states that its strong business relationship with NTT DATA was crucial to the project’s success, because they were confident that, when problems arose along the way, NTT DATA’s professionals would work with Amadeus’s technical team to find a solution. “That’s crucial; otherwise, it couldn’t work in the long run,” says Elena Velázquez, Senior Manager for Culture, Collaborations & Employee Engagement at Amadeus
For example, in the early stages of the project, performance wasn’t as optimal as expected, so NTT DATA worked with Amadeus’s technical staff to successfully resolve the issue.
NTT DATA is also a key client for Employee Communications, which provided added reassurance to Amadeus, even though NTT DATA uses Employee Communications as an internal communication tool in a very different way than Amadeus does.
The cost of innovation is lower with a commercial product, but it also takes less time to create value.
We want to hear from you
We want to help you generate the best solutions to grow your business. Let us know and we will arrange a demo so you can experience how our Syntphony ecosystem of products works.