Marine technology specialist Elcome faces tech recruitment challenges as it grows.
Elcome recognised the potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot to boost productivity and take some of the pressure from teams while boosting service for customers.
Productivity has increased, customer response times are faster, and staff are enthusiastic about the myriad ways Copilot supports and improves their work.
Elcome International LLC is one of the world’s leading marine electronics and technology system integrators, specialised in navigation, communication, automation, charts and publications, safety, and electricals. Founded in 1970, Elcome now has offices in 16 countries from North America to Southeast Asia, delivering world-class support to customers’ assets and fleets around the world.
Microsoft 365 Copilot increases the productivity of our teams.
Sunitta Lewis, Assistant Finance Manager, Elcome
“Our business is growing quite rapidly,” explains Jimmy Grewal, Managing Director of Elcome. “That’s a good problem to have but finding more people to work is a challenge. So it’s very important to me, as the leader of the business, to make our existing team more efficient. Microsoft 365 Copilot was something I was pretty sure would add value to our teams.”
The Elcome team is multi-national, boasting many different nationalities and languages. Often, team members must compose emails and messages that aren’t in their first language. This is time consuming and sometimes the nuances of language can be overlooked.
Elcome recognised that Microsoft 365 Copilot could help support its team to complete customer communications in a way that was less stressful, less time-consuming, and gave a better result: a better communication for the customer.
“The number of emails coming in to us is constantly increasing so we need fast response times and fast decision making,” says Prasanth Gopalakrishnan, Head of Sales at Elcome. “Using Microsoft 365 Copilot, customers get a quicker response. It used to take 24 hours, as part of our quality programme, which we reduced back and eventually reduced to eight hours of response time.”
The customer service team uses Copilot in all aspects of customer communication. The team says it helps with summarising lengthy communications, understanding and processing data very quickly, and by making it easy to change language.
Other benefits have also been realised in processing financial data and when using Microsoft Teams.
Using Microsoft 365 Copilot, customers get a quicker response.
Prasanth Gopalakrishnan, Head of Sales, Elcome
“We’ve seen the greatest benefit of using Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft Teams,” says Jimmy Grewal. “It’s taking notes, it’s keeping track of what everyone says in a meeting, it’s identifying action items.”
He continues, “If you focus on taking information which has no structure but there’s something in there that you want to glean, that’s where Copilot has been fantastic—for our use cases and, especially, for me personally.”
“It also sends reminders to our staff which they have to action upon,” adds Sunitta Lewis, Assistant Finance Manager at Elcome. “So Microsoft 365 Copilot increases the productivity of our teams.”
The Elcome team is delighted by the first phase of the rollout. The business plans to extend the use of Microsoft 365 Copilot for more users.
“It’s so helpful! It’s so amazing!” enthuses Akshaya Anilkumar, Junior Account Executive at Elcome. The enthusiasm for innovating with Copilot extends through all levels of the business.
Jimmy Grewal says, “We’re starting to see now people using it to help draft documents, edit spreadsheets, and create presentations much faster.”
“The possibilities are innumerable,” concludes Sunitta Lewis.
We’re starting to see now people using it to help draft documents, edit spreadsheets, and create presentations much faster.
Jimmy Grewal, Managing Director, Elcome
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