Case Studies

Case Studies

Virgin Trains

At Virgin Trains a need had arisen to make available, share and have a consistent a source of information that was readily available to their business in a user-friendly format. As the need for this information is key to the operation of Virgin Trains, so is the need to make the solution as future proof and as resilient as possible.

Virgin Trains chose the InfoSys solution Domipshere IIC (Intranet Information Center).

Our Domisphere IIC (Intranet Information Center) is a ready to install intranet solution that allows business people to own and manage content. Domisphere IIC is designed to provide your business with a fully working corporate intranet in weeks - not months. Working with easy to use templates, managers can write, edit and manage content for distribution across the entire organisation. Using IBM Lotus SameTime technology, Domisphere IIC provides contextual collaboration services so that people can instantly work together on content without the inefficiencies of the phone or suffer time lapses associated with email communication. Domisphere IIC has many sophisticated and powerful web content management features but ultimately it delivers value by enabling companies to communicate rapidly across boundaries in a secure and reliable way.

From day one Domisphere Intranet Information Centre delivers immediate benefits and value. In a very small amount of days we took our Domisphere IIC solution and banded it to meet with the design of the Virgin Trains corporate intranet site, shown below.

Uniq are a leading European convenience food business, which manufactures and sells chilled, frozen and ambient food products, through retail grocery chains and food service outlets.

In the fast paced, acquisition hungry, foods sector, Uniq has successfully transitioned from dairy, cheese (previously Unigate), and distribution (Wincanton) to profitable value-add convenience foods. Uniq has a large European presence with brands such as St Ivel, Shape and Utterly Butterly, supplying food products to customers such as Marks & Spencer McDonalds and Cadbury's Schweppes.

Keeping an internal audience of 11,000 employees motivated, synchronised and in touch with latest events, has it's own set of challenges. Phil Wilkins, Group Intranet Manager at Uniq chose InfoSys Ltd and our Web Content Management Solution, Domisphere, to assist in launching Uniq’s Intranet site, Unicom, in May 2001. Click here to see the IBM case study.

Domisphere, which leverages Uniq’s existing Domino infrastructure, allows Phil to oversee Unicom, whilst departments are responsible for adding their own content.

Unicom’s initial functions included; Company Directory, Bulletin Board, Newswire Service, Customer Relationship Management and Job Vacancies. All areas were designed to encourage employees to visit the site frequently, and collaborate with their colleagues throughout Europe.

Since then, Unicom is receiving up to 70,000 hits per month, providing Uniq with a forum for communicating company information and knowledge with even the most remotely based employees. Through feedback forms, and a motivated Management Team, employees are encouraged to submit their ideas, for new ways in which Unicom could be used.

Future projects include:

Market Intelligence on trends and buying patterns, for individual countries, provides a valuable analysis tool for Senior Management and employees involved in launching new products or territories.

Sharing customer information between European subsidiaries, to broaden market penetration and customer knowledge.

Purchasing application, which includes a Surplus Raw Materials and Purchase Price Variance Database, ensuring full return on investment.

Uniq are already reaping the financial rewards from Unicom. Printing costs have been reduced by tens of thousands of pounds per annum; by publishing all company information, guidelines and standard procedures onto Unicom.

Major Incident Procedure’s information could help save lives or prevent injury. Uniq’s Management has chosen to pro-actively support employees by publishing up to the minute, on-line information to minimize the risks involved.

InfoSys have now assisted with the launch of Uniq’s Internet site.

Quantel manufacture equipment for the broadcast, film and video industries. For instance, Quantel’s technology delivers Network News to ITN, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Most will remember “Walking with Dinosaurs” from the BBC. Whatever you watch on television, chances are that is has been processed by Quantel’s technology at some point, during its production life cycle.

Just over a year ago, Quantel’s Publicity Department were in charge of managing the content published onto their web site, which in itself was a time consuming task for one department. Few technical skills were available, and the site proved costly to manage and maintain. Nathan Russell was appointed Web Developer and tasked with turning the 250 page static site, into an easy to manage vehicle for delivering news and information to Quantel’s customers, suppliers and employees worldwide.

At the time, Quantel went through a management buy out, change of logo and complete Web Site redesign, all in a short space of time. Nathan had his work cut out ensuring the site had low overhead costs and maintained Quantel’s reputation as an innovative industry leader.

InfoSys have been working with Quantel for the past 4 years, assisting with developing internal applications such as a worldwide travel booking system. In addition, InfoSys provided technical resource to complement and extend Quantel’s team, including the implementation of Domisphere, our Web Content Management Solution.

Domisphere allows companies to delegate the management of web site content, to the departments responsible. No formal technical skills are required, as templates are created in advance, containing logos, font type and page layout. Once the template is completed by content authors, workflow ensures that content published on the web, has followed the correct authorisation procedures.

Nathan told me, “We allowed 2 weeks for the Domisphere proof of concept, which happened smoothly and without any hitches. A further three days development was required to create the templates used for simple content publishing. In fact this took only half a day to master, leaving a further 2 ½ days consultancy for valuable skills transfer. I evaluated several other Content Management Solutions, however, Domisphere provided exactly what we needed, taking advantage of our secure Domino infrastructure.

The site was successfully launched in November 2001, and Nathan is already working with the Sales and Marketing Teams, to improve the Quantel customer experience worldwide.

By reducing overhead costs and resources needed to manage the site, a more pro-active approach can be taken in developing innovative ides. Plans for 2002 include; an on-line shop where customers can purchase up-grades, support and parts, a brand new Intranet site also based on Domisphere, and a Sales Agent site, providing support to Quantel’s worldwide sales and pre-sales teams.

Looking forward, Nathan aims to revamp the website every six months, encouraging visitors to more frequently, and ensuring Quantel remain number one in their field.

Securities Institute is the largest and most widely respected professional body for those who work in securities and investment industry in the UK. Providing a number of benefits to its members, including qualifications, training and other services it currently has over 17,000 members.

Securities Institute are confident Domisphere will provide a much-needed tool for managing the content of the company's web site and intranet and providing the means to make the site more dynamic. It will be used to give content control to the people that own it, and remove the traditional IT bottleneck. The result? A more up-to-date, fast moving and useful website providing client benefit and company efficiency.

The largest cake manufacturer in Europe with brand names such as Mr. Kipling and Lyons Cakes required an efficient way for information and knowledge to be shared around the company.

With Domisphere Manor Bakeries have been able to create a dynamic intranet site that will enable them to capture and store knowledge and information that will be easily accessible to all.

Pizza Hut, the famous pizza restaurant chain, has implemented Domisphere to improve communication within their 300 UK outlets. Restaurants will be able to gain access to a wide range of information including policies, procedures and business forms. In addition, the outlets will be able to send reporting information back to head office, improving communication in both directions.

A review is currently taking place within Pizza Hut to plan further expansion of the Domisphere intranet.

Whitbread Restaurants which incorporates many well known brands such as, Beefeater, Brewers Faye and TGI Fridays decided to go ahead with Domisphere for a corporate intranet site to increase internal awareness and communication through all the three pillars of the business. With the company operating all over the UK, Domisphere has proved to be a great success in communicating from outlets to head office, from corporate information right through to a personnel request.

Dearle & Henderson, a successful construction design and energy consultancy have implemented Domisphere to complement the successful roll out of Lotus Domino/Notes. The Domisphere intranet will act as a portal to other applications and systems, enabling users to find key sources of information more quickly and efficiently.

Dearle & Henderson plan to expand the use of their intranet to act as an aid in pulling their various companies and office locations together, to improve communication throughout the group.

ERM are a risk management consultancy based in central London with offices around the world. ERM are using Domisphere as a foundation for several web based projects. The first project is a solution, which enables ERM to manage information to their clients in a secure extranet environment.

ERM expect to use Domisphere widely as the business requires a greater web based information delivery.

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