Energy and innovation in the Principality of Monaco

SMEG (Société Monégasque de l'Électricité et du Gaz) has been supplying and distributing electricity and gas throughout the Principality of Monaco for 132 years. SMEG is also responsible for the maintenance and operation of public lighting installations as well as the supply and distribution of heating and cooling by network over part of the territory. Safety, customer service, and innovation in full compliance with environmental standards are its major concerns.

With several hundred thousand tourists per year, a high level of economic activity and events, the existing infrastructure must function optimally.

Thomas Cartereau, Chief Information Officer of SMEG, manages a team supporting the digital development of the company’s operations. He explains why SMEG looked into the cloud nearly a decade ago: “With the old system, we couldn’t share files with the outside. Our challenge was to offer a very available service, safe and accessible, to anyone anywhere.”

Team members use a lot of different kinds of content to do their jobs, including spreadsheets, PDFs, Word docs, JPGs, XML files, and videos. Collaborating with partners, suppliers, and independent contractors was difficult using SMEG’s on-premises content tools, and employees turning to shadow IT created a real security threat — a common issue for companies that have not kept up with the pace of digitization of consumer apps.

Saving weeks of time with digitized, cloud-secured content

SMEG is a solid organization with hundreds of partners, so external collaboration is critical to keeping the literal lights on. “Before Box,” Cartereau recalls, “all our documents were on servers, in our data centers, inaccessible from the outside, which made collaboration difficult.”

Ultimately, the solution they chose needed to be secure, scalable, and sustainable into the future, so the team could keep building on it. The cloud was the obvious choice, but not just any cloud. SMEG needed a cloud content management solution that would allow both internal and external collaboration on several terabytes of files without compromising security or compliance. They also needed a platform that would enable people to keep working in Microsoft Office and Google Workspace — two commonly accessed platforms within the organization.

With the Content Cloud, this vision was realized. External partners each have their own Box account for direct collaboration with SMEG, and it’s now possible for teams to work together virtually. In addition, Cartereau says, “Digitizing documents saved us precious time. The Box solution allowed us to set documentation workflows inside departments, which in some use cases, saved us up to three weeks.”

More than 2,500 security incidents flagged

“In our context of work, and with so many external partners, it was important we be able to finely manage the traceability of accesses and also the rights and safety of files,” Cartereau says. To this end, SMEG has partnered with Box on particular security tools.

• Box Zones enables SMEG to keep data within European territory — critical to regional regulation
• Box Sign was rolled out quickly to enhance partner workflows and encountered a very warm reception; teams and vendors easily adopted the new way of working
• Box Shield is used to keep specific types of regulated content secure

With Shield classification settings specifically, SMEG has blocked more than 2,000 attempted shares of sensitive links by disabling users from generating them in the first place. Shield has also flagged about 2,500 potential security incidents. “Subscribing to Shield was obvious to us,” says Cartereau. “Digital security is one of our major concerns, and Box Shield enabled us to increase the security of our storage space in the cloud in a drastic way.”

The IT team at SMEG particularly appreciates Shield’s embedded antivirus software. Shield also tracks all suspect access to files — for example, connections in unwanted areas— to ensure access is always legitimate and safe. “Thanks to Box Shield,” he confirms, “I feel more secure today than I was before.”

The close, symbiotic relationship with Box

SMEG plotted the move to the Content Cloud very carefully with close support from Box. Box Consulting helped design a best-in-breed approach based on experience with other companies of the same type, size, and content behavior. Being able to collaborate with Box on building a roadmap to the Content Cloud, and getting the feedback from Box experts, helped Cartereau’s team build the right digital environment for SMEG.

As a result of the well-designed approach, Cartereau says, “Even seven years ago, we didn’t encounter any reluctance to a cloud orientation.”

SMEG still maintains a tight relationship with its Box Customer Success Manager, who has helped build the technology relationship over the years and remains essential to the partnership. It’s a mutually beneficial one, as Cartereau explains: “Our relationship with Box allows us to interact with the roadmap and enables us to decide which features we want to deploy. In return, Box benefits from our users’ feedback. This relationship is essential for us, day after day.”

A triumph of modernization in a historic place

With Box, the company has been able to: preserve more than 1.4 million file versions, enable 125 mobile users, and save upwards of 1,400 emails by sharing via the Content Cloud. Thanks to these impressive results, Box can be found all across SMEG today for both external and internal collaboration. With a well-thought-out move from paper-based processes to a scalable, secure cloud content strategy, SMEG stays competitive in the digital era.

Box’s solution is central to our digital ecosystem. Its use has spread in every profession, in every use.