Historically, Microsoft SharePoint has been associated with intranets and content management. But customers are now using it for everything from communications to business intelligence, enterprise search, even process integration and workflow automation.
10 innovative examples of Microsoft SharePoint in action
Since its launch in 2001, Microsoft SharePoint has grown to become a leading enterprise platform for intranets and content management. However, customers are increasingly using it to enable a much broader range of capabilities.
They’re building intranet portals, but they’re also leveraging SharePoint’s system integration, process integration and workflow automation capabilities for knowledge sharing, business intelligence, social collaboration, document and file management, communications and more. Here are 10 success stories built on Microsoft SharePoint.
Aker Solutions
Aker Solutions is a Norwegian provider of oilfield products, systems and services to oil and gas industry customers worldwide. It employs 28,000 people in more than 30 countries. In 2010, management set a goal of doubling its revenues of NOK44 billion ($7.7 billion) by 2015.
To meet those goals, the company hired 13,000 employees in four years. Faced with assimilating many employees in a short period, the company deployed a knowledge-sharing platform based on SharePoint Server 2013.
The platform, dubbed Knowledge Arena, combines personal profiles, employee pages with summaries of current responsibilities, areas of expertise, past experience, blog posts, key documents, newsfeeds and more. Within four months, 56.4 percent of employees had created profiles.
Arkansas Department of Corrections
Contraband is a source of criminal activity within prisons: drugs, money, mobile phones, weapons. Stopping it has fallen to 4,000 statewide guards.
The Arkansas Department of Corrections opted to turn to BI and predictive analytics to identify trends.With Microsoft’s help, it built a Fusion Core Solution based on SharePoint that allows the department to analyze previously siloed databases ranging from population tracking and visitation tracking to banking and telephone records.
“We had access to this data before, but we could not visualize it to see the patterns and trends,” says Daniel Potter, assistant IT administrator. “Our analysts are able to clearly see developments. Over the last two weeks, we have been able to execute 11 confiscations and interdictions on incidents.”
iGATE
iGATE is a global provider of IT services and consulting with more than 300 active global clients, many of them Fortune 1000 companies. It also has 28,500 employees, with an average age of 25.
It needed an internal social collaboration tool that allowed them to share process updates and knowledge more efficiently and effectively. With the help of Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS), it deployed SharePoint 2010 for its iSocialize platform, with SQL 2008 as the database management system.
Leveraging an existing license, iGATE was able to connect its global workforce at minimum cost. The company says about 15 percent of employees log in to iSocialize daily and it expects traffic to increase as the content and management improve.
MWH
MWH Global is a “wet infrastructure” firm that provides engineering, construction and management services for some of the world’s largest water-related projects: public water distribution, hydropower, environmental reclamation and more. It has 8,000 employees and believes it must foster innovation by helping them share their talent and experience.
It has an integrated working strategy that calls for keeping collaborative processes and tools simple and universally available. It uses a combination of Lync Server 2013, Yammer, Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint Server 2010 as part of its comprehensive collaboration solution.
The company says it is now able to foster creativity within and across organizational boundaries. Federation and external SharePoint team sites are allowing it to extend those benefits beyond corporate borders.
Dutch Public Prosecution Service (DPPS)
With 20 offices in the Netherlands, DPSS investigates crimes and decides whether to bring cases to court, prosecutes offenders and supervises sentences. Its 800 prosecutors spend time out of the office, at crime scenes, meeting colleagues and presenting cases.
DPSS needed a better mobility experience, with easily managed endpoints that met data security and confidentiality requirements. DPSS turned to Windows 8 tablets with applications that connect to data stored on its SharePoint-based intranet and an Oracle database.
The 24/7 Quick Reference Application gives them access to legal protocols and procedures stored on a SharePoint site. The People Guide application connects them to colleagues and their expertise, while the Case File Viewer functions like an offline client for a case management system.
Dutch Public Prosecution Service (DPPS)
With 20 offices in the Netherlands, DPSS investigates crimes and decides whether to bring cases to court, prosecutes offenders and supervises sentences. Its 800 prosecutors spend time out of the office, at crime scenes, meeting colleagues and presenting cases.
DPSS needed a better mobility experience, with easily managed endpoints that met data security and confidentiality requirements. DPSS turned to Windows 8 tablets with applications that connect to data stored on its SharePoint-based intranet and an Oracle database.
The 24/7 Quick Reference Application gives them access to legal protocols and procedures stored on a SharePoint site. The People Guide application connects them to colleagues and their expertise, while the Case File Viewer functions like an offline client for a case management system.
ASB Bank
Based in Auckland, New Zealand and founded in 1847, ASB Bank has 4,500 employees and provides personal and business banking services for 25 percent of New Zealanders. Aiming to give its employments maximum mobility, it needed a comprehensive workflow and social collaboration environment for collaboration tools that work with tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices. It also wanted to reduce its dependence on paper by moving most documents online.
It deployed SharePoint 2013 Team Sites to give departments the ability to manage document scanning, storage, archiving and security. It also provided employees with the ability to share information through personal sites, team sites, newsfeeds, wiki sites, forums and blogs.
Toyota Motor Corporation
With 2012 revenue of $181.3 billion, Toyota is the world’s largest automaker by sales volume. Its GAZOO.com website has 1.7 million registered users and delivers car owners and Toyota employees and dealers with vehicle information, social networking, news and entertainment.
Aiming to enhance site content, increase scalability and reduce the cost of ownership, Toyota wanted to leverage the cloud. It turned to Windows Azure for its cloud development environment, with SharePoint 2013 for content management and blogs.
“Toyota has 300,000 pages of content, and the SharePoint 2013 search capability lets us quickly retrieve information,” says Hidehiko Sasaki of the e-TOYOTA division. “We are also using blogs—and, in future releases, other social features like yammer.
Aegon
Aegon is one of the world’s largest insurance and pension groups, with 24,000 employees working in more than 20 international markets. Aiming to build a global intranet that made it easy to search for people and information across businesses, while also facilitating social collaboration and real-time sharing of data, Aegon used SharePoint Server with integrated social networking features from NewsGator Social Sites.
Aegon says it has given its employees easier, more specific access to subject matter experts, and that it allows employees to share experiences and best practices more effectively on their PCs and mobile devices. It also lets the company recognize and reward top contributors to the network while maintaining effective control for governance and regulatory purposes.
Kindred Healthcare
Kindred Healthcare has 76,000 employees and is one of the largest diversified providers of post-acute care services in the U.S. After acquiring RehabCare Group in 2011, the company gained 22,000 mobile employees who used Gmail and needed a solution to integrate them into its communication infrastructure.
Kindred already had an on-premises deployment of Exchange Server 2013 for its existing 54,000 employees. The company opted for Office 365, including SharePoint Online, to meet its needs while also fulfilling security requirements and regulatory and legal compliance.
All of Kindred’s therapists now receive corporate communications directly via a SharePoint portal instead of through their managers. The system allows everyone to send messages more quickly, accurately and consistently.
JSC “Dobeles dzirnavenieks”
JSC is one of the leading cereal products in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. In 2008, it partnered with an international food company, requiring rapidly growing output. Many of its functions are managed electronically, like management of production processes, monitoring, accounting and customer relations.
The company has about 75 computer users, and the growing output meant upgrading and improving its IT infrastructure and eliminating previous infrastructure errors. JSC leveraged SharePoint Online, together with Office 365, Lync Online and Exchange Online to dramatically improve communication between employees.
Employees now use the SharePoint document sharing options, which provide them with reminders when files are updated or republished, while also providing the ability to share files over their mobile devices.
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