“The team supported us in developing and implementing a strategic SharePoint Roadmap for Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, to architect a solution that is now being used as a benchmark across the Mercedes-Benz group. They have excellent technical knowledge of the products, and engage well with end users: I look forward to working with them again in the future.”
— Marcus Byrne, Project Manager
Situation
Mercedes-Benz Financial Services engaged in a requirements gathering workshop to learn how to better leverage their existing SharePoint 2013 platform, and improve the flow of information across the organisation.
Having already invested in a SharePoint 2013 on premises solution, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services were looking to understand how to fully leverage the range of functionalities within SharePoint to enable them to reduce email clutter, find information more easily, and share and collaborate more efficiently between departments.
Mercedes-Benz Financial Services currently use SharePoint 2013 on premise, but at the time of this engagement, their environment had become unwieldy, cluttered, and unscalable. Business Cloud Integration Ltd was brought in to help them identify their requirements, and demonstrate the full range of functionality their existing solution could offer, so that SharePoint 2013 could be fully leveraged to create consistency across the environment, and enhance collaboration and sharing within the organisation.
We gave advice on best practice for SharePoint, and guidance on how to make systems self service where possible, so as to reduce email noise and clutter, and ensure that everyone could access the important information they needed.
Solution
Requirements Workshop
We ran an interactive requirements gathering workshop with representative champions from each department, to help Mercedes-Benz Financial Services understand their data management and business processes, and determine an information architecture that would support their ways of working.
Recommendations
Our recommendations included:
- Making systems self-service where possible, to reduce email clutter and give everyone access to the information they need, quickly and easily
- Take a standardised approach to team sites, to encourage and support consistent working practices, and to help users find information and share it between departments more easily
Training
We delivered engaging training for both SharePoint Admins and departmental champions, to empower them to take ownership of their environment, and use their knowledge to grow the environment beyond their initial requirements, in accordance with company best practice. This entire solution was delivered on client site, to allow for knowledge transfer and on hand expert technical advice for their teams.
Leading captive financial services provider Mercedes-Benz Financial Services is part of Daimler AG.
About
Software
- SharePoint 2013
Services
- SharePoint Consulting
- SharePoint Infrastructure Planning
- Business Process Improvement
- SharePoint Training
- SharePoint Support
Added Value
Ongoing Support
We provide ongoing support to the organisation and act as a trusted technical adviser for requirements as they arise. We also act as a technical translation layer between enterprise support in another country and their end users.
Added Value
Better understanding of SharePoint
In the requirements workshop, each departmental champion represented the concerns of those within their teams, which meant that the solution was designed with all users in mind. Because these champions now have a strong understanding of the decision making process and how best to utilise SharePoint to achieve their aims, they are able to advocate for the solution within their own departments. This in turn encourages users to engage more enthusiastically with the final solution.
Actual, not perceived, requirements delivered
We helped Mercedes-Benz Financial Services to understand their own requirements, and identify those they did not know existed, which means that the solution delivered provided what they actually needed rather than what they thought they needed.
More efficient working
The combination of the new streamlined architecture, and an informed understanding of information management best practice, has created an environment where email clutter is vastly reduced, and everyone can quickly and easily access the correct information they need to get their work done.
