Welding Alloys

• Welding Alloys, an industrial components/manufacturing group
• 1250 staff
• Operating in 35 countries through a network of 30 subsidiaries

Founded in 1966, Welding Alloys Group is the global specialist in low and high-alloyed cored wires, automated welding equipment for surfacing and joining applications and industrial welding applications.

During a period of rapid growth, the staff cohort grew significantly. The need for efficient communication channels became more acute but email was stretched to the limit as a means of communicating and sharing. Welding Alloys needed a system that allowed staff in different countries and time zones to work more efficiently with each other as well as with head office in the UK.

Examples of team working challenges Welding Alloys faced:

• Once a year, managers from across the global network come together for annual performance reviews and business planning. Large and sensitive files outlining the previous year’s performance and predictions for the coming year, need to be sent to the meeting’s central organiser and the delegates.  The files are too large to email and postal delivery raises concerns around security, time and cost.
• Product development processes needed to run more smoothly; the company’s Thailand division needed to connect with managers, the marketing department and developers in different locations.  Ideas generated at the cutting edge of development, needed to be shared quickly and securely with those higher up the management chain.

Welding Alloys initially opted for the Clinked Large Professional package but staff adopted it quickly and capacity was exceeded so they upgraded to the Enterprise package, which is fully white-labeled and offers 600GB storage with unlimited groups and 24/7 support. The company has around 40 active groups at any one time.

Using Clinked, Welding Alloys was able to upload large quantities of information and documentation to a central location (in the cloud), making it readily available to everyone that needed it, in multiple locations worldwide.

Commenting on Welding Alloys’ use of Clinked, Sally Hopkins said: “Inclusion became our watchword, thanks to Clinked. We quickly found that staff were working more efficiently and communicating better with each other because they were actively engaging around ideas, discussions and documents that were all in one place. As a company, we have become accustomed to sharing data and information more freely within Clinked, in the knowledge that it is secure but accessible.”

“In addition to storage capacity and space to collaborate, we also find the activities log particularly useful as it shows what people have been working on and what needs chasing (if it’s inactive).”