CASE STUDY
The SPAR Group is a warehousing and distribution business listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in the Food and Drug Retailers sector . The Group owns the SPAR retail brand and supports a network of independent retailers who trade under the brand through its distribution centres . The SPAR Group , headquartered in Durban , South Africa , is present in nine countries , has 10 distribution centres and serves 3,768 retail members through 14 store formats every day .
Retailers are looking for innovative ways of optimising operations , increasing employee efficiency , and enhancing customer experiences . The rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence provides them with a tool to do so especially when it comes to data analysis to support employee skills .
“ Given our high-pressure environment , we had to find an effective way of streamlining the workload of our project managers and executive assistants who are reliant on Microsoft 365 in their daily tasks ,” says Greg Hay , Technology Manager at SPAR Group .
SPAR became an early adopter of Copilot for Microsoft 365 and integrated it into its existing Microsoft 365 ecosystem . The pilot project resulted in Copilot being extensively used in Word for document creation and summarisation , and in Teams for catching up on missed meetings and managing minutes . The impact of Copilot for Microsoft 365 on SPAR ’ s operations has been significant .
Legacy operations
Retail modernisation by enhancing productivity in document management , meeting summarisations , security , and communications has become a solution to succeed in challenging economic conditions .
SPAR identified an opportunity to transform its back office environment to drive operational improvements .
According to Hay , Before implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365 , SPAR faced significant pain points in team collaboration and workflows . Legacy processes led to inefficient and time-consuming workflows , resulting in delayed project deliveries . The manual handling of tasks slowed down the speed at which data could be accessed and shared among team members .
SINCE SPAR ALREADY RUNS A LEAN OPERATION ,
USING COPILOT FOR MICROSOFT 365
ENABLES EMPLOYEES TO GET THROUGH THEIR
WORKLOADS FASTER THAN BEFORE .
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