How often have you heard your manager say:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Many of you have probably faced the same dilemma: You know that your intranet is far from state-of-the-art, but most of your internal customers have somehow got used to the current system and accept the intranet as it is. You’re convinced that your company can do much better, but how do you create that sense of urgency; that compelling need for change which will wake up employees and managers alike?
At Arup, the global professional services firm headquartered in London, Julian Diamond faced similar issues as the Head of Information Management. In his case, a third party benchmarking survey came to the rescue. It helped his team understand the strengths and weaknesses of Arup’s intranet and to see clearly what was working and what was in need of attention. The team went on to develop a business case for funding and to shape the strategic direction of Arup’s intranet.
One area that required attention is enterprise search. Julian is currently heavily engaged in an upgrade of Arup’s intranet search implementation which uses Autonomy. One of the lessons learned is that the shortcomings of search are largely the consequence of content management issues rather than technology ones.
Thanks to all of the above, the Arup intranet has made a quantum leap forward, which Julian will share on the intranet conference track. Recognition has come also in the form of winning an Intranet Innovation award from Step Two Designs, the Australian intranet consulting company.
Julian is head of Arup’s global Information Management Group (IMG) which aims to provide best-in-class information services and support to the 10,000+ employee strong engineering, design and planning consultancy firm.
See the full program of the intranet track or sign up for the conference now.
