Case Study: Aberdeenshire Council achieves a modern, flexible digital workplace and improved collaboration with Microsoft Teams

Council brings the digital workplace to historic Scottish region

Aberdeenshire Council, the local authority serving 260,000 residents across more than 2,000 square miles of rural northeast Scotland, needed to modernize collaboration and enable secure, flexible remote working for 15,000 staff spread over 350 sites. Facing legacy infrastructure, mobile frontline workers, and strict security/compliance requirements, the council adopted Microsoft Teams as part of a wider Microsoft 365 cloud strategy (including Azure AD, Intune, SharePoint Online, Yammer and Surface Hub) to change working culture and improve service delivery.

Using Microsoft Teams alongside other Microsoft 365 tools, the council migrated mail, deployed around 25 Surface Hub devices, created 60 Teams channels and active Yammer communities (152 groups, 3,400 members), and manages 3,000 devices via Intune with FastTrack support for adoption. The rollout eliminated £153,000 in datacentre and related costs, cut travel by 22% over three years, enabled mobile access for social workers and councillors (including remote voting), and saved IT time (about 10 administration days per month), delivering more secure, efficient and collaborative working—driven by Microsoft Teams.

Aberdeenshire Council

Nicola Graham

Head of ICT