SGS
A new Intranet platform
In February 2017, SGS, the world's leading inspection, monitoring and certification company, wanted to migrate its Intranet platform to Microsoft Office 365. There were multiple challenges: to migrate their SharePoint platform to a global collaborative website, and facilitate the day to day lives of some 95,000 staff by giving them quality, relevant and customised information.
Standardising access to the information and applications
"SGS is gradually transforming itself and moving towards SaaS and the Cloud. Now more than ever, it is crucial to offer our employees a stable and increasingly secure IT environment." says Vincent Ballini, Head of Infrastructure, Network and Cloud Services at SGS.
In 2017 SGS consequently decided to migrate its ageing SharePoint 2007 to an Intranet portal based on Office 365. There were many challenges with the project.
"First of all, we had to understand everyone's expectations, needs and constraints. So we surveyed the categories of staff-types that we had identified: Road workers, Back office staff, Sales staff, Inspectors, Assistants and Management, amongst others.
Despite the diversity of jobs within SGS, the challenge for everyone was to be able to view their favourite applications, their e-mails not dealt with, their last contacts called, or even the last documents opened; and everything accessible on any device. This Intranet should reflect its slogan: "Anywhere, anytime, any device".
We wanted the SGS Intranet to be an essential repository, updated daily and a catalyst for dialogue," explains Vincent Ballini.
Customising the content was also one of the major focuses of this project. Indeed, the 95,000 staff are spread across the globe, from Finland to Mexico, by way of Angola, and all have specific needs.
"Let's take an example. We wanted the HR Manager based in Colombia to see news linked to human resources in their country displayed on their Intranet portal. This exclusive content aims to enrich and add depth to the information and supplement the news linked to blog posts, press articles or even new SGS Global acquisitions," says Vincent Ballini.
An understanding of the business challenges and needs
"SQLI really understood these requirements. Our contacts clearly understood what we expected, and what we wanted to obtain and in which direction we wanted to develop this Intranet," explains Vincent Ballini.
"The suggested design showed that the SQLI teams sought to put themselves in the user's shoes. The information architecture, the colours, the position of the logo, the sections... Everything was thought out in terms of anticipating and facilitating usage by end users," he adds.
Change Management was also an aspect of the project that could not be left out. Indeed, too many new features or "gadgets" could have bothered users, and adopting the tool could have been less easy.
“Anticipating the evolution and changing needs”
"Since its launch in January 2018, the first feedback that we have had, from all staff profiles taken together, has been very positive: clear and logical information architecture, the information given out was relevant, very user-friendly to use, etc."
But more than a simple Intranet, this collaboration and communication platform was thought out and designed to evolve.
"Now that the users have had a taste of customisation, they want more! From April onwards, we will continue in this direction, by continually adding more customised content and gradually incorporating Microsoft Online products such as Teams.This Intranet has real power in terms of communication," says Vincent Ballini.
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