The company will provide 20,000 worldwide employees with access to Office 365 services for more effective work

Sep 16, 2014 09:34 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has just scored another important win after managing to sign a new partnership with Carlsberg Group, that would basically make Office 365 available to 20,000 employees worldwide.

As is the case with all the other partnerships signed by Microsoft for Office 365, Carlsberg says that it decided to adopt Redmond’s cloud-based productivity suite for enhanced mobility and collaboration between its employees, thus managing to “centrally manage their operations around the world.”

Carlsberg has also created a new strategy called “GloCal,” that’s supposed to streamline collaboration and communications between employees, no matter their locations.

Microsoft Office 365 thus fits this strategy perfectly, company officials have said in the announcement released this morning, especially as it struggles to make the global supply chain work more effectively.

Carlsberg to launch new concept with Office 365

As part of the new GloCal approach, the company is looking to launch what it calls the Carlsberg Supply Chain (CSC), which would rely on Office 365 services for better and faster web conferencing, instant messaging, and collaborative team sites.

The final goal, Carlsberg says, is to “centrally manage the procurement, production, logistics and planning functions that previously occurred in isolation across the world.”

“Beer is heavy, so we don’t want to transport it very long distances,” Etienne Dock, vice president of IT architecture and sourcing at Carlsberg, explains.

“And breweries are capital intensive, so we don’t want to build too many. CSC gets huge business value from using Office 365 as a global collaboration tool to interact with our global markets and exchange the information we need to fine-tune the balance between these variables to optimize our operations and save money.”

Microsoft aggressively pushing Office 365

Carlsberg is not the first company that chooses Office 365 for its powerful communications and collaboration features, and Microsoft is continuously seeking new partners for its cloud-based productivity solution.

The Office division has become the company’s number one cash cow, and the subscription-based system used by the service could soon be used for the launch of other products, including a possible new version of the Windows operating system.

People close to the matter have said that Microsoft is pondering the development of what could be called Windows 365, a new service that would come with a similar subscription system for users worldwide.

Many sources, however, have denied such a project, explaining that Microsoft might actually focus on some other Windows-based services for enterprises, some of which could see daylight next year.