International Airlines Group adopts Microsoft Office 365

Group comprising British Airways and Iberia selects Microsoft tools to aid collaboration between its 58,000 staff

International Airlines Group (IAG) has chosen to deploy Microsoft Office 365 for its 58,000 employees, enabling staff to collaborate with each other across the globe.

The group, one of the largest in the aviation industry, formed via the merger of British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia, will use Microsoft cloud-based services, including Office 365, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Yammer.

The company selected Office 365 because, it says, it needed to enable airline staff to work together across the entire group. The need for better internal communication was key to the decision, especially enterprise social networking tools, such as Yammer.

Such tools ought to enable different departments in the group to more quickly communicate with one another, so that the company can more quickly understand feedback from customers, for example, and respond swiftly to market changes.

"Giving our employees the tools and freedom to achieve more in their day-to-day activities was a key component in our decision to engage with Microsoft," said Nigel Underwood, chief information officer at IAG.

"Office 365 will allow employees to collaborate and achieve their work tasks regardless of the platform, product or device.

"This is an excellent example of IAG enabling change within the group to create a common IT platform for our airlines, which will be more efficient and reduce our costs," he added.