The Challenge

A global professional services firm was implementing an enterprise-wide intranet for its US business. The objective was to replace a series of intranets managed by multiple business owners and having no common user experience with an enterprise-wide portal, a gateway for all employees to access information for both internal activities and to support client service delivery. At the same time, the Firm was embarking on a new strategy around Knowledge Management, with goals to create a culture of knowledge sharing and communication, provide easy access to relevant content and people, and establish effective collaborative networks.

Approach

The Knowledge Services team became the primary business owner for the enterprise-wide employee portal which provides access to core tools and research for business professionals, as well as entree to support processes, such as Benefits and other Human Resources areas, Finance, IT, Support Services and Procurement.

Working with both the Knowledge Services team and the Information Technology organization, the Allen Advisory Group provided program management support to monitor and manage the project’s various work streams. The Allen Advisory team performed tasks and provided input to the project teams, working groups and Steering Committee, and participated in the key decisions on intranet redesign, information architecture and usability of the intranet tools and content strategy.

This team also led Change Management efforts, soliciting input from and driving adoption through the various user communities. Working with internal client teams, communications and training programs for core user communities across the Firm were led by this team,. Governance structures and processes around the knowledge strategy implementation and use of the enterprise portal and collaboration tools were developed by the Allen Advisory team.

Results

Implementation of the Firm’s Knowledge Strategy demands more integration of tools, methodologies, intellectual property, people and teams. The successful implementation of knowledge-enabling technologies and tools, including an enterprise-wide portal, employee profile and collaboration sites, communications and training efforts combined with integrating knowledge sharing and governance into the core business processes, has enabled improved creation, capture and sharing of knowledge across teams and business units, to enhance client service delivery and improve business productivity.