Background

Real Finance enrolled in the “Build An Intranet” course to address the company wide issue of people being unable to find the information and resources they need. The team was struggling with a legacy system, and more tech-savvy employees faced daily disruptions from emails from other users to locate resources. These challenges where wasting resources and causing frustrations among users receiving high volume emails.

Real Finance were in need of a central place to manage all of the company’s key resources and surface constantly changing guidelines and legislation. With the organisation being in financial services, having access to up-to-date information was paramount to compliance and ultimately business success.

Solution

The team reached out to AAG, their technology partner, who recommended using SharePoint. Having worked with us in the past, and knowing our expertise in the area, they set up a call with our CEO Andy Hodges. On this call it became apparent that they had the resource inhouse to build the solution themselves, but they did not have the knowledge. So they decided to enrol in the Build An Intranet Course created by the Intranet Specialists at ThinkShare.

Over the course of a 12-week period, Real Finance committed to completing 12 key modules, across four topics:

• Discovery
• Design
• Build
• Launch

Each module is comprised of helpful tutorials, easy to follow how-to-videos, and relevant resources. Empowering our attendees to manage an intranet project from inception to completion.

Whilst working through the modules, they would have a weekly one-hour call with one of our SharePoint experts. On these calls they could choose to discuss any challenges they had faced with any of the course material, or to share their progress for feedback and guidance.

Over the course of that 12-week period: they defined project requirements, designed a set of wireframes, built and themed a SharePoint Intranet, created a clear document management structure, populated their intranet with relevant documents, news and more. All whilst utilising our change management modules to prepare and excite their geographically dispersed team for the upcoming change.

Challenges

Real Finance did face some challenges over the course of the project. Stating they didn’t know just how limited the design capabilities of SharePoint were. On our weekly calls we worked closely to overcome these issues, sharing templates from our design tools to create custom fonts and branded imagery.

Whilst this may seem like a vanity, researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura from the Hitachi Design Center found that when users experience a positive emotional reaction to visual design, it increases their acceptance of minor usability flaws. This underscores a crucial aspect of user experience; it cannot solely rely on functionality. A visually appealing design isn’t merely an optional luxury, it profoundly impacts how users perceive your solution.

Results

Within just 12 weeks, we worked together to empower them to build an intranet that improved access and flow, reduced distracting emails, and recreated a familiar sense of being in a much larger financial institution.

It has also had a positive impact on employee morale as users are able to easily find the information they need without having to rely on others, meaning contact with their colleagues is more productive and more engaging.

Feedback

Real Finance stated that overall, the course was a 9 out of 10 for its content and the knowledge that someone would be able to help if they ever felt stuck. They enjoyed the weekly calls immensely and stated they felt a great sense of achievement in what they had managed to create.

They stated that they would recommend the course to others because it gave them the tools and knowledge to create what they needed and had surpassed their expectations. Whilst many aspects of the course where invaluable they found the design modules particularly useful, as they would not have been able to use PowerShell to theme the intranet without our guidance.

Build An Intranet

Our tiered Build An Intranet course options provide all businesses, regardless of their size, with an opportunity to create an engaging intranet.

From self-guided learning, to full course access with weekly calls from an expert, any one regardless of their previous experience with SharePoint can build a fully functioning intranet.

You can learn more about our courses here, or speak to one of our experts about the best option for you.

About Real Finance

Real Finance are an experienced team of former senior bankers who understand businesses and the banking market. They pride themselves on understanding how lenders make their decisions and use that expertise to structure and best present borrowing requests to achieve a successful outcome.

They are a hands-on team that supports their clients in developing their plans prior to formally seeking facilities. They work to develop, build and enhance long term relationships with both their clients and lenders based on trust, integrity, creative solutions and speed of execution.