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Current Case Studies |
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Century Computers
Overview
 Century Computers is a US-based company specialising in outsourced solutions. They chose Intranet DASHBOARD for both their internal communications and business process improvement amongst distributed offices and remote workers.
Their previous way of working, involving network drives, made it difficult to manage documents and distribute accurate information in a timely way. They were looking for fast ROI and 'instant information gratification' from their intranet.
Intranet DASHBOARD was implemented in a day and the easy content management system allowed them to populate it with content within the month.
Client Profile
Century have a long and distinguished history in providing outsourced solutions, having been in the business for 22 years. They currently employ 75 staff and have achieved an impressive 30 percent average annual company growth rate over the last six years. This was a catalyst for the enhancement of their intranet.
Their services include hosting, managed services, document imaging and accounting service. Century pride themselves on simplifying the IT experience so clients can focus on their core business.
'The industry is heading in the direction of executives and staff using a dashboard view to monitor information on a daily basis. People want everything in a central repository, accessing it in a way that works for them. We chose Intranet DASHBOARD because it provides a great return on investment and it's simple to administer.
It’s a feature rich environment that allows you to easily, without technical expertise, create function and appealing content.' - Rick Marine, CEO
The Challenge
Century needed a streamlined system to communicate with internal staff and improve business processes. They wanted a cost effective and user friendly way to manage their intranet. It was a challenge to find information and documents on the numerous drives Century maintained. They needed one place to go to save them time and costly duplication of effort.
In summary they needed a system that would:
- Empower non-technical staff to publish and build the intranet site.
- Deliver cost reductions in terms of infrastructure, communications and process management.
- Provide secure areas for sensitive information.
- Draw attention to important information.
- Enable staff to search across any application, document or page; fast access to information.
- Save them untimely and costly application development.
The Solution For Century
Clever Tools
Intranet DASHBOARD came with a suite of over 34 applications. Under any other circumstances just one similar bespoke application such as the Document Manager could cost more than the entire iD package.
'It has lots of tools to facilitate processes and help people do what they need to do. It's not a disparate collection of products. I don't need to go out and buy anything else.' - Rick Marine
The unique collection of smart tools or 'killer apps' contained within Intranet DASHBOARD enhanced the intranet, encouraging employee usage and return visits. In addition to the distributed publishing advantages, Century found that they were able to tailor the layout and tools to suit each individual department.
For example, the Digital Imaging programmers were able to work remotely or from home and still record and discuss projects by using the Digital Assets Manager and Project Space.
The HR Department found the usual suspects, Content Publisher, Document Manager, News and the Company Calendar, an invaluable collection of tools for HR self-service. Employee Training is also expected to make the process of applying for and booking courses much easier.
Century's Marketing and Sales Departments were able to catalogue important vendor information in one central place. In particular the Sales staff used Quicklinks to link to frequently used agreements, cutting the time normally required to find and access them. Brand Manager and Image Library facilitated consistency of branding in material that went out to customers.
Century uses a number of contractors in the Administration Department so finding frequently used documents, and answers to questions, was supported by the sophisticated Search tool, Document Manager, Quicklinks and the FAQ tool. Acronym Manager also helped new people find out what on earth people were talking about! Afterall every company has their own language and acronyms.
According to the Marketing Manager, the tools were intuitive and the free tutorials were great!
Cost Management
Implementation of iD is faster than with other products, which reduced the initial outlay for Century. Furthermore, clever tools eliminated the need to purchase other proprietary products or add-ons, reducing the total cost of ownership of the solution.
The Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) option impressed Century because it also provides futher savings to companies that may not need the full MS SQL Server. MSDE comes bundled with iD at no further cost. MS SQL Server can cost upwards of $8K.
The product was simple to install and no specialist knowledge was required.
'With other solutions you need specialists and programmers and time. Smaller businesses want to cut costs. They don't always have these resources available.' - Century Marketing Manager
Work Processes
Intranet DASHBOARD expedited the process of sharing and managing content. It allowed people, such as those in IT and HR, to get on with other tasks. According to Century's Marketing Manager, people can perform self-service; other people don't necessarily have the time to service them anymore.
'This is very pro-active communications. If communications are only reactive it costs you money because people have to stop what they're working on to react.' - CEO, Rick Marine
The distributed content management model also empowered the 'real' owners of content to have direct control over publishing.
A readily customisable layout enabled different parts of the business to respond to different user needs. The requirements of the HR site for example were quite different to the needs of the Marketing and Sales site. Century could also now encourage staff to stay away from their directories where information was easily lost or version control was an issue.
The framework was easily manageable and reduced the number of web servers to 1, consequently reducing the number of IT staff required to maintain the system.
The Ongoing Benefits For Century Computers
Other foreseeable benefits include:
- Improved customer service through consultants gaining fast access to marketing information, pricing and white papers.
- More effective content management and recycling of content; speed to publish.
- Improved employee productivity; reducing the time spent on administration and set-up. Where once it took ten steps to do something, now it only takes three!
- Control of the intranet within their own IT environment. Continuous improvement feedback on each site, page and application.
'iD allows you to tailor the intranet to suit your organisational set-up AND it still looks good! We encourage other organisations to start small and iD will grow with them from there', Ruby Marine, HR Manager
End Note
After researching the competition, Century decided to become a reseller and now offer the software throughout the United States. Clients cover the real estate industry and various Government agencies including the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI.
For more information on Intranet DASHBOARD please visit www.intranetdashboard.com or contact a consultant on +61 (0)3 9819 6333.
For more information on Century Computers please visit www.centuryc.com
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