“SharePoint has handled it very well (external website and extranet).”
Overview
Business to business company founded in 1883
Services: heat transfer, separation, fluid handling (heat exchanges, etc.).
Revenue: $2.7 billion Euros in annual sales.
Employees: 10,500 in 60 countries
Public website luanched in SharePoint in May 2008
Extranet planned for June 1, 2009
Intranet pre-study started for launch in 2010
Public website (www.alfalaval.com)
3000 pages
25 languages
60 country sites
Pre-study: 1-year (planning, etc.)
Implementation: 1-year (launched May 2008)
Project team of 5 people
50% of money on external dollars; 50% internal time and resources
Implementation strategy
Standard SharePoint
Limited external application integration
One platform for public website, extranet and intranet
Strategic direction
Operatonal efficiency
Functional development
Governance and resources (single governance structure for all sites)
Challenge / problem: Variation system
Custom development to allow for
Submit variation to slected country sites
Reject/Accept a submitted variation
Submit variation' doesn't work for web parts
Reuse of language versions not possible
Challenge: separating language/locale
Only one language version
Spanish in Spain, Chile, Colombia, etc.
English in UK, India, US
Many languages are supported – but its not supported to have one language for the CONTENT and another rfor the authoring environment
Challenge: Image management
Where is a particular image used? What pages?
Different versions of the same photo are not grouped together by type
Overly basic / simplistic
Challenge: creating forms (complicated for authors)
Challenge: formatting is difficult with standard editor (reusable cotnent doesn't work with the RadEditor)
Integrator: Fishbone Systems AB
Analysis: well this blows out of the water the notion that SharePoint shouldn't be used as an external website platform. The Alfa Laval site is impressive – with 60 sites in 25 languages. Microsoft would do well to add this to their case studies alongside Hawiian Airlines.
Visit the website: www.alfalaval.com