Global Auto Supplier Inteva Products Builds Collaborative Culture, Enables Remote Work

Inteva Products is a leading automotive supplier providing innovative, reliable, environmentally friendly products that enhance vehicle quality, safety, and performance. Inteva has global resources for design, engineering, manufacturing, and customer service for closure systems, interior systems, and motors and electronics.

Formed in 2008, the tier-one supplier is focused on achieving sustained global growth, providing excellent customer service, and driving innovation. Inteva was founded on innovative solutions and the use of applied technology to drive value-based solutions. Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, the company employs more than 8,000 people across 30 sites.

However, with an ever-expanding, geo-dispersed workforce, Inteva lacked the connected, collaborative tools required for operational agility and ultimately, business success. Travel costs were increasing for internal and external meetings, and the company’s legacy conferencing tools weren’t enabling the culture Inteva envisioned. Inteva CIO Dennis Hodges said: “We really wanted to find a way for more people to be involved.”

Company growth required more than audio

Hodges quickly realized Inteva had a communications challenge after an acquisition in 2011 that nearly doubled Inteva’s locations. One of its biggest challenges, he noted, was adding people to the team in a cost-effective way.

“We were basically a new company with the acquisition, and we were trying to get everybody to know each other,” Hodges said. “We were trying to build a company culture, but the amount of travel required to do so – for people to meet and work on projects together – was substantial, and audio conferencing really wasn’t solving the problem.”

Hodges said Inteva had a few disparate communications solutions already in place, including several locations with conference rooms set up for video using Polycom and other assorted technologies. But all of it was difficult to manage and “extremely cost-prohibitive,” according to Hodges.

“We were running a screen sharing tool, an audio conference call (service), and then we’d be doing instant messaging on the side to get questions answered on the call,” he said. “So we had three applications to basically have a single meeting, plus the conference room.” Hodges set out to implement a unified communications platform that would better reflect Inteva’s innovative, collaborative culture internally to employees and externally to customers and business partners.

Modernizing communications, enabling remote work

Inteva consolidated its various solutions onto the Zoom unified communications platform and now leverages Zoom Meetings for video, audio, chat, and screen sharing for more than 10,000 meetings and 2.3 million minutes a month. The company also plugged in Zoom’s Outlook integration to easily manage and schedule meetings right from email.

“Zoom’s mobile platform has been rock-solid, too,” Hodges said. “We’ve really enabled remote work, which is critical for a company like us. We are always either at a supplier’s building trying to make sure the parts they are making for us are adequate, or we’re at a customer site making sure the parts we’re making for them are working.

“With Zoom, we’re modernizing employee communications and are really able to keep up with the speed of business.”

Tens of thousands dollars saved every month

By replacing its various legacy audio conferencing systems and meeting tools, Inteva saved tens of thousands of dollars every month and untold more in global travel. Company personnel can better connect with remote workers, quickly collaborate with engineering teams, and more easily interact with customers and suppliers, all from a single unified communications platform.

Zoom has transformed how Inteva does business, Hodges said, and the company plans to continue using Zoom as its primary communications tool. Hodges added that he is currently exploring Zoom Rooms – “we’re testing the DTEN right now – and has Zoom Phone on his wish list for Inteva.

“My goal is that there won’t be a physical phone on anyone’s desk 12 months from now,” he said. “This is a professional tool for a professional company,” Hodges said, “and we’re able to work as a team better with Zoom. Not only that, the travel wear and tear on our bodies and the amount of time we’re out of the office, away from home … those are all things that we’re solving with Zoom.”