Belgium preps for EU Presidency with Cloud Computing

The Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) Social Security has turned to Cloud Computing in order to prepare for the country’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which begins in July.

The group responsible for planning the handover, the FPS Social Security’s EU 2010 Presidency Team, is using a secure Cloud-based collaborative platform – Huddle – to coordinate meetings, conferences, and relevant documents, ahead of the transition.

According to the FPS, the extensive use of email was resulting in mailboxes “being overloaded and exceeding their limits” with the ability to collaborate on projects becoming increasingly difficult.

“We’re an administration team that has always strived to be efficient and dynamic and the Presidency seemed to be the ideal time to deploy better communications tools,” said Max Raets, policy officer, FPS Social Security. “We needed a system that was accessible to contributors from both inside and outside of the organisation, while at the same time enabling us to limit the accessibility of sensitive documents to specific users.”

Raets added, “Thanks to Huddle, our shared network drive for the Presidency project is obsolete and, for some projects, Huddle has replaced email completely.”

“Transparent communication and collaboration is vital in the public sector. Sharing knowledge and information cross-department or with external organisations can help ensure that projects are delivered successfully and within the required time scales,” said Alastair Mitchell, co-founder and CEO, Huddle. “The Belgian FPS Social Security’s use of Huddle is a great example of how Cloud-based technology can help break down silos and help people work better together. This should not only improve efficiency, but ultimately lead to cost savings.”

“Huddle illustrates the new culture of our administration,” explained Tom Auwers, general director, FPS Social Security. “We work in a dynamic office where people can decide for themselves when and from where they work. People are also free to define how to organise and execute their work.  They can work from home or when they are on the move and being able to share information with a team, project committee, or specific partners, is crucial to make this a success.”