The challenge
iMeds has a team of 11 employees and one manager, with each employee responsible for specific businesses and their associated enquiries.
For example, one employee could be responsible for a particular business and manage all enquiries received into that business’s mailbox. While this created individual ownership, it also created significant operational silos.
The person managing the mailbox became the primary, and sometimes only, person with visibility of what was happening. If another team member needed to understand the status of an enquiry, they often had to go directly to the person responsible for that mailbox.
This meant iMeds had limited visibility across the wider operation. The manager could not easily see the full workload across the team, employees had limited visibility of work outside their assigned businesses, and knowledge of particular processes became concentrated with individual people.
One mailbox had also accumulated more than 20,000 unread important emails, highlighting the risk of managing high-volume work through isolated mailboxes without a consolidated view.
The opportunity
The objective was not simply to move the existing mailboxes into Kunye Cloud. The opportunity was to rethink how the work was structured.
Instead of 11 people working largely within their own individual areas, the workstreams were reviewed to identify:
- Businesses with similar types of enquiries
- Work that could logically be managed together
- Areas where workloads could be shared
- Opportunities to reduce dependency on individual employees
- Businesses that required dedicated ownership or specialist knowledge
This allowed the team to move from an individual mailbox model to a shared workstream model.
The solution: consolidating the work
The existing businesses and workloads were reviewed and reshuffled based on where they worked best together. Related businesses and compatible enquiry types were consolidated into broader, logical workstreams.
This reduced the individualised structure to 7 shared mailboxes, collectively managed by the 11 employees.
The intention was not to reduce ownership. It was to move from individual ownership to shared accountability with defined ownership.
The transformation
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Shared mailboxes | Centralised enquiry management |
| Email forwarding | Structured assignment |
| Unclear ownership | Visible ownership |
| Read/unread emails | Enquiry status |
| Limited auditability | Greater visibility of activity |
| Reactive management | Proactive workload management |
The impact
The transformation changed more than the number of mailboxes. It changed how iMeds worked.
By consolidating 11 individualised areas of responsibility into 7 shared workstreams, iMeds created a more collaborative and resilient way of managing enquiries. The new structure reduced dependency on individual employees, increased visibility across the team and gave management a clearer view of how work was being managed.
Most importantly, the team moved from:
“This is my mailbox and my business.”
to:
“This is our workstream, with clear ownership and shared responsibility.”
The result was a more connected operating model where work could be seen, shared and managed collectively, without losing accountability.