The Challenge

From operating in silos to a cohesive, integrated platform

One of the world’s largest audit and advisory firms, Mazars Spain, had a problem. The company’s more than 600 workers and business units were operating in functional silos across seven cities in Spain. Each individual location operated from its own on-premise servers, with assets stored locally, and customer communication was relegated to email. The lack of interoperability between the locales was slowing productivity, hindering growth, and negatively impacting the customer experience.

Against a backdrop that’s all too familiar to IT leaders in today’s workplace, this is where David Marcelino came in. A CIO who defies conventional thinking in his approach to IT strategy, David places human beings—as opposed to technology—at the forefront of his IT strategy. Creating a technology roadmap that’s turned the traditional model on its head, David maps teams and activities, rather than tools. This is the story of how David Marcelino fixed the problem at Mazars using Dropbox Business.

The Evaluation

Adopting a new, human-centric approach to IT

Essentially given free rein, with the support of his superiors to "fix the broken workplace," David was able to craft the ideal solution for Mazars Spain in order to navigate the business forward.

“I started with a pen and paper,” explains David. “I spoke to stakeholders across the entire business, and traveled the length and breadth of Spain, to find out what it is they needed in order to work how they wanted to work.”

It was during this research phase that he identified the right path for the business. “We had to flip the strategy around,” says David.

Designing a strategy focused on the right priorities

Building a comprehensive list of priorities from teams around the business, David then had the task of putting them into some kind of order. “By speaking to people and not guessing what we thought was wrong, we were able to better understand the problems that needed solving. We then chose to focus on implementing workflows which empowered our people and ultimately took them away from collaborating over email,” explains David. “Our key priorities were employee productivity, client interaction, and minimizing risk of data loss.”

Recognizing the scale of the challenge in front of him, David devised a three-year technology roadmap to transform the business. The pivotal first step was to introduce a platform to foster collaboration between teams and individual business units. That platform was Dropbox Business.

The Solution

Making it easy to collaborate from anywhere

“Sharing knowledge and collaborating across different locations in a secure environment is invaluable to growth,” says David. “Empowering our people to bring their unique know-how to the fore and work more effectively together has accelerated problem-solving and is improving employee engagement and how we interact with our customers.”

Working with the broader business to drive adoption

Making such a radical change to operations was a big step for Mazars. To help gain company consensus, David enlisted the support of the Human Resources Director to not only showcase the benefits of moving to a cloud-based smart workspace as an integral part of the business, but also to ensure solutions were aligned to company culture.“

David explained how moving to Dropbox Business would break down the silos between locations and teams,” says a leader from the HR Department. “We then devised a communications plan to educate our people and get them excited for the impending change. Starting this process early and highlighting the value to be realized by widespread adoption meant we had rapid uptake and early adopters supporting the move.”

The Results

The future for Mazars Spain

“In the past we had employees wasting hundreds of hours a week trying to find the latest forecasts on emails or working on different versions of the same contract,” says a leader from the HR Department. “The difference with Dropbox Business has been transformational,” he continues. “Clients are happier. Productivity is better. And we can now give people the freedom to work how they want, with the tools they want. The future looks very positive.”

With Dropbox Business at the core, Mazars have been able to centralize tools, teams and content. Making it as easy as possible for employees to come together and collaborate from anywhere. David explains, “Dropbox Business has enabled us to bring all our locations together into one cohesive, integrated platform. As a result, we are more productive, our people are happier, and our clients get the service they deserve.”

David’s plans for the future of Mazars Spain are exciting and invigorating. “Adopting a people-first approach to our IT strategy has empowered people to drive real business value,” says David. “Innovation is improving. Productivity is improving. Customer engagement is improving. And, we are eliminating the clutter and complexity that was putting the brakes on our growth.”