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Wednesday, January 11

Intranet Insider World Tour: Sodexo USA

by Toby Ward on Wed 11 Jan 2006 01:46 PM PST

Sodexo USA’s successful intranet is home grown – no portal solution, no content management platform. Despite the proliferation of expensive solutions, SodexoNet (Sodexo’s home page) is a shining example of how intranet success can be delivered and measured without the benefit of an off-the-shelf solution.

SodexoNet was the featured tour stop on today's Intranet Insider World Tour, presented by Communitelligence.com and hosted by myself and Sodexo's Angelo Ioffreda. Comments, questions and discussion are encouraged below...

Sodexo USA is one of the biggest companies you may not know. Sodexo USA (www.sodexoUSA.com) is the leading provider of food and facilities management in North America, with $6 billion in annual revenues and 110,000+ employees. Sodexo runs cafeterias, housekeeping in the hospitality sector, grounds keeping, plant operations and maintenance and laundry services to more than 6,000 companies principally in health care, schools, and the military.

Headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, Sodexo has employees spread out across and in all corners of the continent. An even greater challenge than the geographic disparity of its employees is the nature of their work. The vast majority of these employees are hourly workers who are not desktop workers with their own computers – they’re on the frontlines rather preparing and serving food, cleaning, and performing site operations. SodexoNet is a tying bond that links most of the managers and management of this diverse and disparate group.

“The intranet is a perfect gathering place,” says Angelo Ioffreda, VP, internal communications, Sodexo USA. Companies with many thousands of employees dispersed across great regions and dozens of locations require an effective intranet. Today the intranet serves Sodexo’s managers across the world. Registered users have grown from 2,000 in April, 1999, to more than 14,500 users today.

To access the intranet, each manager pays $39.69 for annual intranet access. Surprisingly, this is not a bone of contention at Sodexo, but expected at an organization with a corporate philosophy for charging for costs incurred. The charge also benefits user managers as the onus is greater on the intranet team to deliver a winning product that is embraced. Finally, the charge also commits managers to use the intranet. If you’re paying, you better use it.

Like all effective systems, SodhexoNet has a vision: "SodexoNet is a one-stop shop for all of our managers’ information needs and an indispensable part of a Sodexo work day.”

Accompanying the vision is some practical but key goals:

· Essential business and communications tool

· Robust, timely, relevant, accurate content

· Intuitive navigation

· Quick access

· Easy to search

· Feedback capacity

· Cost-effectiveness

SodexoNet’s greatest strength however is its management team, lead by corporate communications.

The corporate communications team has five people including an art designer, a communications specialist/writer, the e-communications manager , e-communications specialist , and the VP. The e-communications manager and specialist are the only ones dedicated full-time to the intranet; the others contribute on a part-time basis. The eBusiness team from IT has a director, a project manager, two art designers, three programmers, and a technical trainer. They also support other IT projects.

In addition to the contributions of IT and Communications, there are well over 100 content owners-authors. Each business line has a principal content owner (e.g. health care, etc.). Each line has sub-groups (e.g. hospitals, etc.) that also contribute content.

One of the intranet’s key strengths lies in the team’s understanding that the intranet must intimately understand its target audience and constantly measure its performance. By measuring its success, Sodhexho knows where to concentrate its efforts and resources and constantly strive for improvement.

Among the many measures the intranet team tracks (for the last year measured compared to the previous year):

·         User behavior and how usage is trending (those never using SodexoNet dropped from 19% to 1%)

·         SodexhoNet as a “valuable resource” to employees (from 74 to 84%)

·         Registered users who visit the site monthly (from 55 to 90%)

·         Most visited pages (career center, HR, health care, phone book, and search)

·         Most searched terms (forms, recipe collection, performance appraisal)

·         Return on investment (where possible)

One of SodexoNet’s more innovative and successful tools is its SuperSleuth sales lead program. SuperSleuth is an intranet web page and application that encourages employees to submit sales leads and prospective clients via the intranet. The SuperSleuth intranet page generate cash rewards of up to $1000 for the person making the submission. Sodexo says it has contributed to a 100% increase in sales leads in the past year. Let me repeat: a 100% increase in company sales leads. In fact, the SuperSleuth tool has led to US$90 million dollars in managed volume (net client sales including sales by client). Proof positive of a killer application.

While the site has evolved considerably and its value has grown measurably in recent years, it hasn’t been without considerable effort and some lessons learned, says Ioffreda.

Amongst the key lessons learned:

Create a vision

Partner with IT (“big time,” says Ioffreda stressing the importance of a healthy working relationship with IT) – and HR

Establish clear standards for the site

Make end-users the center of your universe

Incorporate real-time feedback from end-users

Track user behavior

Make content ‘king’

Involve, support, and communicate with your content owners

Develop an editorial / programming mindset

Strive for intuitive navigation

Improve your search and speed

Commit to continuous improvement in product and processes

Make your site a business tool

Reduce costs

Raise efficiency

Bring in revenue

To purchase a copy of the flash presentation with audio, please visit the Communitelligence.com Learning Academy store.

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Tuesday, January 3

Top 5 New Year wishes of an intranet consultant

by Toby Ward on Tue 03 Jan 2006 12:17 AM PST

To celebrate the New Year I thought I’d put to paper (or screen) my top wishes for the year… consider it the desired resolutions of clients and consultants!

1- Planning before technology

The horse and cart work so much better when you let the horse go first. The same is true of the intranet. Don’t let Microsoft sell you Sharepoint, or IBM sell you Webshpere, and then say, “We need some consulting.” An intranet needs a plan before the technology is selected. Otherwise you’re working for the technology when the technology should be working for you.

There are hundreds or thousands of platform options when you consider portal solutions, content management systems, hybrids and other products. Why would you automatically default to an expensive and generic product if you don’t have to?

For the record, Sharepoint or Websphere might do the job you’re looking for, but those products are not for everyone. In fact, in my mind, they only work for a small minority of companies.

2- Turn-down the portal hype

Portal technology has never lived up to the hype because they solve little by themselves. This of course relates to the aforementioned cart before the horse and the need for planning before technology. What most portal companies fail to properly promote during the sales process is that a successful portal requires three key requisites:

People

Process

Technology

Unfortunately, most portal companies are only after the money to buy and implement the portal. The fact remains that there are very few successful portal implementations out there. People and process are often an afterthought. In fact, they are the two most important factors, technology is merely an enabler.

Build the foundation with a strong ownership, defined governance, polices and standards, and a well documented blueprint and then consider looking at portal solutions.

3- More executive champions

A corporation is not a democracy. Corporations, including not-for-profit corporations and government agencies and ministries, are run from the top down. Some corporations are more democratic than others and rule with a more collaborative environment than the traditional chain-of-command control structure, but all corporations are run from the top. As such, your intranet’s value will be severely limited without the support from senior management. Grassroots campaigns work in an open democratic society; grassroots intranets ultimately fail in a controlled corporation. When executives speak, employees listen. Moreover, senior management has deep pockets that make dreams come true…

4- Demand ROI

A 2003 study of 240 intranet managers and consultants undertaken by Prescient Digital Media revealed that only 6% of organizations undertake ongoing, specific measurement of the ROI of their intranet. Occasional measurement is undertaken by only 26% of organizations and 51% either do no measurement, don’t know if they do, or only guess at the ROI. 18% are considering ROI measurements. As I recently wrote in Intranet ROI, many organizations will continue to show interest in ROI; most however won’t demand it. Just because it’s not demanded though doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find it. If you don’t find it, you’re not proving the value of the intranet or portal. If you’re not proving the value, you’re limiting its value and potential because you will fail to garner the necessary resources to build and increase its value.

5- Well-prepared RFPs

I am so sick of seeing RFPs that have 20 pages of legal text and a half page of requirements. Please, do not let purchasing write your RFP. Prepare all your requirements first, and then fit them into your standard RFP template.

Purchasing doesn’t know the first thing about an intranet, in fact, they are damaging your organization when you let them drive the RFP. Purchasing should drive the process, not the requirements. Determine precisely what you need to do and the type of functionality you need to fulfill those needs. Then you can prepare an RFP that invites vendors to meet your requirements instead of focusing on legalese that only benefits the lawyers. Better yet enlist the support or help of someone with a lot of RFP experience… a good RFP can make a project that much better.

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Happy New Year!

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