DENSO Spirit Spotlight: North American IT Team Completes Mission Impossible

DENSO’s North American IT (NAITS) team was in the middle of executing mission impossible: Transitioning its North American infrastructure from Lotus Notes to Microsoft O365. So, when tackling new challenges, no obstacle is too great for the NAITS team – even a global pandemic. As the COVID-19 situation became more severe, these behind-the-scenes change agents raced against the clock to prep its NA facilities for a “new working normal.”

Although DENSO had already implemented a work from home policy, the NAITS team needed to quickly secure and purchase software licenses in order to build up a remote infrastructure capable of supporting a total work from home environment. Simultaneously, they knew they would have to speed up an in-progress transition from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Office 365 – a big feat in itself – across its facilities, as well as create a work around procedure so employees could update their systems remotely.

Within three weeks, the team deployed new tools and capabilities across that enabled office employees across the region to work from home. Since then, they have significantly increased DENSO’s remote work capacity across North America. It has made a huge difference in the ability of teams to work from home successfully and allowed for faster communication among top management. With these new capabilities, DENSO employees say that they’re more productive, focused and grateful they can both work and spend more time with their families during this crisis.

“While this is a time of global isolation, our workforce is more connected now than ever before. It was an impossible task and our team rose to the challenge,” said Kenichiro Ito, chief executive officer of DENSO’s North American headquarters. “I commend the NAITS team for their quick initial response and continued support during a difficult time. Thanks to their hard work, the digital infrastructure they’ve created will support us now and well into the future.”

From DENSO leadership and its employees across the region – a massive thank you to Mary McCallum (Information Technology Senior Manager), Kevin Moore (Information Technology Manager), Chris Robinson (Information Technology Manager), Mark Stasinski (Information Technology Manager), Chad Sharp (Information Technology Manager), Gary Nieman (Engineering Information Technology Manager) and the entire NAITS team! They’ve made a real difference to our employees and the effectiveness of our leaders.