Case Studies

INTRODUCTION

A Fortune 500 manufacturer had a need to more effectively communicate to their employee base. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 highlighted the technology gaps the company had in presenting information to their employees quickly and efficiently.

INFORMATION GATHERING

Amorphous Consulting was brought in to evaluate the current communication technology infrastructure and present a plan to take it forward. Through interviews, documentation and thorough investigation, we developed an overview as to the current systems situation at the company. What we found were pieces of technology that were outdated and could not meet the needs of the company. Many were patch-worked together to meet a specific need, and could not effectively be used company-wide. We also found other pieces of technology that were underutilized, and at a low-cost, would be able to provide quick results to the client.

PROCEDURE

The first piece of technology Amorphous tackled was the outdated Intranet, both in terms of content and technology. Through careful gathering of requirements, talking with users, and evaluating existing technology, we concluded that a new Intranet was needed. We also concluded the system would need a new way to create and manage content. The current system required too many steps and required technical skills, creating a bottleneck within the IT department. After two months of work, the newly branded Intranet was launched to the employees of the company.

The site had new features, including:

Archiving of past news articles and content
A complete content-management system
Allowed site-owners to update their site without having to learn complex technologies. It also allowed users to schedule when content would appear on their site
Search functionality to find content and news
Integration with existing applications such as SAP
Creation of new applications for specific needs including a CEO Mailbox and Sales Leads

Amorphous also sought to utilize a television network that had initially been setup to give information to employees who did not have access to the Intranet. The technology used for this network was valuable but had never been fully implemented nor had its features been fully utilized. We led an effort to roll this system out to seven different plant locations throughout the country. From a centralized hub, corporate could now broadcast specific messages to the plant employees, while allowing the plant to add their own content into the system.

RESULTS

Since the launch, interest and traffic of the site has continued to expand. Before Amorphous became involved, the site experiences roughly 1.6 million hits per month. One month after the site went live; the site had doubled traffic from the same base of users. One year after the site launched, the site now receives over 5 million hits per month.

The roll-out of the television-based system continues, and has allowed new features such as broadcast video messages to be used. Feedback from the plants has been overwhelmingly positive so far with their new system.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes having a consultant come in and conclude what technologies currently work and do not work can help a company more effectively utilize their existing resources. In other cases, new technology is needed to meet the business requirements of a client.

	Case Studies INTRODUCTION A Fortune 500 manufacturer had a need to more effectively communicate to their employee base. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 highlighted the technology gaps the company had in presenting information to their employees quickly and efficiently. INFORMATION GATHERING Amorphous Consulting was brought in to evaluate the current communication technology infrastructure and present a plan to take it forward. Through interviews, documentation and thorough investigation, we developed an overview as to the current systems situation at the company. What we found were pieces of technology that were outdated and could not meet the needs of the company. Many were patch-worked together to meet a specific need, and could not effectively be used company-wide. We also found other pieces of technology that were underutilized, and at a low-cost, would be able to provide quick results to the client. PROCEDURE The first piece of technology Amorphous tackled was the outdated Intranet, both in terms of content and technology. Through careful gathering of requirements, talking with users, and evaluating existing technology, we concluded that a new Intranet was needed. We also concluded the system would need a new way to create and manage content. The current system required too many steps and required technical skills, creating a bottleneck within the IT department. After two months of work, the newly branded Intranet was launched to the employees of the company. The site had new features, including: Archiving of past news articles and content A complete content-management system Allowed site-owners to update their site without having to learn complex technologies. It also allowed users to schedule when content would appear on their site Search functionality to find content and news Integration with existing applications such as SAP Creation of new applications for specific needs including a CEO Mailbox and Sales Leads Amorphous also sought to utilize a television network that had initially been setup to give information to employees who did not have access to the Intranet. The technology used for this network was valuable but had never been fully implemented nor had its features been fully utilized. We led an effort to roll this system out to seven different plant locations throughout the country. From a centralized hub, corporate could now broadcast specific messages to the plant employees, while allowing the plant to add their own content into the system. RESULTS Since the launch, interest and traffic of the site has continued to expand. Before Amorphous became involved, the site experiences roughly 1.6 million hits per month. One month after the site went live; the site had doubled traffic from the same base of users. One year after the site launched, the site now receives over 5 million hits per month. The roll-out of the television-based system continues, and has allowed new features such as broadcast video messages to be used. Feedback from the plants has been overwhelmingly positive so far with their new system. CONCLUSION Sometimes having a consultant come in and conclude what technologies currently work and do not work can help a company more effectively utilize their existing resources. In other cases, new technology is needed to meet the business requirements of a client.

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