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April 03, 2023

Specialty window manufacturer Zöllner runs business more effectively with Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH, a German window manufacturer with 90 employees, has spent 50 years perfecting the hands-on, traditional approach that sets the business apart. “At Zöllner, we design and build high-quality wood-aluminum windows,” explains Frank Severin, Head of Organization and Processes at Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH. Unlike many manufacturers in the market, Zöllner not only designs and builds, but installs its products. “We’re part of the customer journey from A to Z,” says Severin.


While Zöllner’s clientele love hand-crafted windows and an old-school focus on customers, the Zöllner team needed to find a new, more refined approach to collaboration with customers. “Our people are highly focused on making great windows and having happy customers, but when it came to automation and digitization, we weren’t working in a modern way,” says Severin. That realization, paired with rising material costs and increased competition for talent, led to what Severin calls an “obligation to optimize”—and to the implementation of Microsoft 365 Business Premium. “We created a three-year strategy focused on how to grow our business in a challenging time,” says Severin. “A key part of that strategy was to invest in modern collaboration tools like those in Microsoft 365.” Today, Zöllner is bringing its history of craftsmanship into a new era, growing its business, connecting with customers, and dramatically boosting efficiency. “With Microsoft 365 tools, we’ve found a way to maintain the quality of a small manufacturing business while scaling like a much larger business,” says Severin.

Zollner Fensterbau GmbH

“With Microsoft 365 tools, we’ve found a way to maintain the quality of a small manufacturing business while scaling like a much larger business.”

Frank Severin, Head of Organization and Processes, Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH

From varied tools and versions to a unified platform

Before the Microsoft 365 implementation, Zöllner’s employees faced challenges with effective collaboration, both internally and with customers. This was especially true from the field or on the rare occasions when they worked from home—something that was still uncommon until a few years ago because of technological limitations and a traditional face-to-face culture. “We used to share technical drawings and other documents by email,” says Severin. “If changes or clarifications needed to be made, someone from our team had to drive to the customer site to understand what was going on.” The process was time-consuming and created a travel-heavy schedule for employees. An assortment of systems in use at the company further hindered collaboration. “The systems we had weren’t consistent, which led to frequent issues with version control and exchanging files,” remembers Severin.

To address these challenges, Severin and his colleagues made finding a way to harmonize Zöllner’s systems their first goal. “We decided to bring everything onto a single, evergreen platform for improved and simplified communication,” says Severin. “It was obvious to us that Microsoft 365 was the best way to achieve that.” 

To make the rollout a success, Zöllner partnered with IT-HAUS GmbH, a member of the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. Matthias Bender, Competence Center Leader for Productivity and Applications at IT-HAUS GmbH, explains why Microsoft 365 took off at the organization: “Zöllner started with Microsoft Teams and decided to bring employees from all areas of the business into early meetings about the rollout. It made it clear that this was a strategic decision backed by management, not just another IT project.” That inclusive approach, coupled with the simplicity of the Teams solution, created a quick win for Zöllner. “In the manufacturing industry, not everyone is tech savvy,” explains Severin. “Microsoft Teams is simple and easy to use, so at the end of the day, people can focus on creating a high-quality product rather than trying to understand new technology.”

Today, Teams is the go-to platform where Zöllner employees get work done. “We use Teams as much more than a video conferencing and calling tool,” says Severin. “We use Teams to collaborate internally on projects, share files, and we recently started integrating our enterprise resource planning system into the Teams interface. In the future, all of our customer orders and confirmations will happen through the platform.” Zöllner also followed the Teams rollout by transitioning to Outlook and Exchange Online for email. Before adopting Microsoft 365, the company relied on another solution for email that lacked the user adoption and functionality of Outlook. “Moving to Outlook and Exchange Online has helped us with improved functionality, including personal calendars and contact management, and upgraded the overall user experience,” says Severin. “And the tools also work seamlessly with Teams.”

The value of a single, unified platform has already become clear at Zöllner. “In the past, we sometimes experienced confusion on customer projects because of issues with sharing documents and information via email and hard disk drives,” recalls Severin. “People often had to ask for clarification about where they could find the latest drawings or information. Today, we’ve improved the process by using Teams to share that information and keep everyone on the same page.”

The simple act of consolidating solutions on the Microsoft 365 platform also supports new opportunities to modernize, notes Severin. “I see a lot of potential to improve processes even more now that we have everything on one platform,” he says. “It opens up a lot of doors in terms of reporting, controlling, and automation.”

“Teams is simple and easy to use, so at the end of the day, people can focus on creating a high-quality product rather than trying to understand new technology.”

Frank Severin, Head of Organization and Processes, Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH

Improving security and mobility while saving on costs

While the Microsoft 365 journey at Zöllner began with Teams and Exchange Online, the business quickly identified SharePoint as the next tool that could help it make strides in its modernization journey. “We’ve begun, and almost finished, the process of moving all of our files to SharePoint from our existing file server and from physical hard disks,” says Severin. “Soon, SharePoint will be the main storage platform for all of our files.” 

The use of Teams and SharePoint has also led to a newfound ability to work effectively from anywhere. “Up until now, people installing windows onsite could only contact their colleagues on their mobile phones if there were issues,” says Severin. “Today, they use their phones to connect to Teams and use SharePoint to upload photographs from the field and chat with colleagues, who can help them solve issues in real time. The new process has led to big efficiency gains that are beneficial for Zöllner and our customers.” 

Thanks to the use of Microsoft 365 tools to reduce travel at the organization, the platform is undeniably popular with employees. “In the past, people had to jump in the car and drive as much as three hours to get to a customer site just to clarify something,” says Severin. “Those same people love that they can now jump on a Teams call, invite an architect and a customer, share drawings, and discuss issues that way. We’re saving a lot of time by reducing travel and clearing up problems in 10 or 15 minutes that would have taken hours before.” Cutting back on unnecessary trips and boosting efficiency overall will also lead to cost savings, points out Severin. “We’ve already identified that there will be future savings because of the efficiencies we’ve gained by using Microsoft 365,” he says.

Zöllner has also used the move to Microsoft 365 to enhance its security. In the past, Zöllner didn’t use any form of central management for mobile devices. Implementing Intune, part of Microsoft 365 Business Premium, created another layer of security. “We use Intune to enforce certain compliance policies on mobile devices, in addition to providing access control for known and compliant devices," says Severin. “It’s been a big upgrade for us in overall security.”

Appealing to all employees with enhanced hybrid work capabilities

Prior to the use of Microsoft 365, working from home was a rarity for Zöllner employees. “When I first joined, we had only basic arrangements for working from home,” remembers Severin. He notes that employees had to sign in to a terminal server, which often had connection issues and didn’t provide access to all the tools and software employees needed to work from home effectively. “We now want to give people more opportunities to work from home, and Microsoft 365 has been popular, especially among younger employees, because people can use the platform to access all the material they need.” It’s all part of Zöllner’s strategy to be more competitive on the hiring market. “Finding and keeping the right people is a challenge for everyone, particularly for companies like ours in the handicraft business,” says Severin. “One of the drivers for our transformation was to create a modernized working environment that makes us more attractive as an employer. We use Microsoft 365 to build the environment employees look for, especially the ability to work from home.”

Just a few months after the initial Microsoft 365 implementation, Zöllner employees are still discovering new tools. “We’ve become heavy users of Microsoft Planner,” says Severin. “We use it to track to-do tasks in small teams and for bigger, long-term goals that involve the whole company.”

“We’ve already identified that there will be future savings because of the efficiencies we’ve gained by using Microsoft 365.”

Frank Severin, Head of Organization and Processes, Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH

Updating a heritage brand with a modern transformation

Zöllner’s strategy for appealing to new employees with modern tools has paid off. “In interviews, the new possibilities we’ve created and the modern ways of working using Microsoft 365 have been very well received,” emphasizes Severin. “I believe that applicants understand there’s a transformation going on here, and that plays a role in their decision to work with us.”

The company’s customers have also taken note of the new, modern brand that the company is presenting to the world. “We get feedback from our customers and partners about how professional their interactions with us look now,” says Severin. “We’re more structured and in control of our processes. It’s a big boost to our strategy of being a premium business to work with.”

Find out more about Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH on Facebook.

“One of the drivers for our transformation was to create a modernized working environment that makes us more attractive as an employer. We use Microsoft 365 to build the environment employees look for.”

Frank Severin, Head of Organization and Processes, Zöllner Fensterbau GmbH

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