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How a North American Dairy Company Reduced Workplace Admin Costs Across 35 Sites
Desk booking lived in one system, visitor management in another, and billing was handled building by building. elia replaced that patchwork with a single platform across 35 sites, cutting the admin work of running a distributed workplace footprint down to one dashboard and one invoice.
At a glance
1 connected
platform
35 sites
centralized
3-company
lobby streamlined
1 annual
invoice
LOCATION
North America
INDUSTRY
Dairy
SIZE
800 employees
company overview
The company is a major North American dairy producer operating across Canada and the US. With roughly 800 employees at its main office and a footprint spanning 35 sites, the company manages a mix of corporate and operational locations under a 50/50 hybrid work model.
PRODUCTS USED
A major North American dairy company had moved to a 50/50 hybrid model and wanted a better way to support it. The first need was desk booking at headquarters, but the bigger issue was broader: visitor operations across a much larger network of sites were also becoming time-consuming to manage.
Before elia, those needs were split across separate tools. Desk booking lived in one system, visitor management in another, and billing was handled building by building. What should have been a connected workplace experience had become a patchwork of platforms and invoices.
The challenge
The main challenge was at headquarters, where 800 people were sharing roughly 300 desks. The team needed a way for employees to plan office days and make hybrid work easier to navigate day to day.
Visitor management created a different kind of complexity. The team was dealing with:
- fragmented administration across sites in Canada and the US
- a shared lobby setup, where one receptionist was checking in guests for three different companies in the same building
- slow badge printing, which caused delays for visitors and delivery drivers arriving throughout the day
- separate monthly invoices tied to individual buildings
- slow vendor responsiveness, with feedback and feature requests taking too long to turn into product changes
Each issue was manageable on its own through separate platforms, but together, they created a workplace setup that took too much time to run and too many systems to maintain.
Workspace at a glance
Category
Count
Active sites across Canada and the US
35
Employees at the main office
800
Bookable desks (roughly a 1:3 ratio)
329
Companies sharing one lobby
3
Visitor management licenses
46
How elia Helped
The company implemented elia as a shared workplace layer for its corporate and operational sites. Beyond the software, the partnership allowed them to build a system that matched their specific logistics.
Effective desk coordination
THE ISSUE
At the main office, 800 employees were sharing roughly 300 desks, and finding an open spot meant searching rather than planning.
ELIA'S SOLUTION
Employees now use the same platform to plan their office days. They can view the floor plan, see where their colleagues are sitting, and reserve a desk in seconds.
Centralized portfolio management
THE ISSUE
Every site was treated like a separate account, which made it hard for the facilities team to manage security protocols or review visitor activity consistently across locations.
ELIA'S SOLUTION
The central facilities team can now oversee locations from one dashboard, updating security protocols or reviewing visitor logs across the continent without switching between different logins.
Simplified billing
THE ISSUE
Separate monthly invoices for individual buildings made costs hard to track and created ongoing billing follow-up.
ELIA'S SOLUTION
The company moved to one annual billing structure for desk booking and visitor management, simplifying cost tracking and cutting down on routine billing work.
Shared reception and multi-tenant support
THE ISSUE
A shared headquarters building meant one receptionist was checking in guests for three different companies, with no unified way to manage it.
ELIA'S SOLUTION
A single kiosk now handles visitors for all three companies. Guests select their destination on arrival, and the receptionist manages all check-ins from one view.
Responsive development
THE ISSUE
The organization needed specific features to handle a high-traffic delivery flow, and slow vendor responsiveness had been a recurring problem.
ELIA'S SOLUTION
The product team implemented the needed updates in weeks, giving the organization confidence that feedback would translate into real changes.
The results
By moving to a single platform, the company simplified workplace operations across a distributed footprint:
- 35 locations managed under one platform
- 329 bookable desks supporting the headquarters hybrid model
- 3 companies sharing one visitor kiosk
- one annual billing structure instead of separate monthly invoices by building
- less administrative time spent across site setup and visitor operations
- much faster badge printing at the front desk
- rapid feature deployment based on real-time feedback from the facilities team
Why it matters
A lot of companies don’t have one neat workplace use case across every location. Headquarters may need desk booking. Other sites may care more about visitors. Some buildings may have shared reception setups or more complex operating needs.
For this company, the value came from replacing a patchwork setup with a more consistent way to run workplace operations across different buildings and site realities.
