Project Overview
As a company with six locations scattered across central London and a number of team members regularly working from home, Cascade Group needed to make everyone feel like they were integrated into one cooperative team. This became especially important when they were in the process of ISO9001 accreditation and needed to ensure that staff were all operating the same systems and processes whilst continually improving. Whilst talking to their offshoot specialist design and web development company, Cascade Studio, the idea of creating an extranet was born.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Project Brief
HR Functions
1. Provide a means of tracking and approving staff holiday requests in such a way that managers can see how much holiday for that year has been taken and ensure that all sales / production people across the group are not absent at the same time.
2. Ensure that staff absences are communicated across all locations and recorded.
3. Ensure that staff contact details and emergency contacts are kept up to date and are readily available.
Operational Improvements
1. Provide a central resource for product knowledge / operational procedures and make readily available marketing materials / company information.
2. Allow errors to be recorded and assessed inline with ISO9001 Quality Standards.
3. Provide a central supplier database for all staff to share their own suppliers / knowledge on with full product and contact information for each supplier, account details and a ratings / commenting system.
4. Track and record overtime submissions and link to project that required it so that profitability can be better assessed.
5. Provide a cost calculator so that all staff can create appropriate pricing models
Project Need
With offices and staff distributed across central London, Cascade Group had a number of HR and business process requirements that were not being effectively addressed. Cascade Group had previously tried a range of off the shelf Software as a Service (Saas) solutions but each had fallen by the wayside as it failed to meet the unique requirements of the Group and were too disparate, requiring multiple logins to multiple websites.
The directors also knew that cooperation and sharing of knowledge would be key to allowing the business to deliver on its aggressive growth plan. Centralising this allowed for new starters to be brought up to speed more quickly and for different team members based at different offices to feel like they were part of one team.
Before the extranet, each team operated as a silo with supplier knowledge, holiday requests/approvals and ISO records kept locally. This led to inaccurate reporting, higher costs and even a point where all the print production people or designers were on holiday at the same time leaving the business struggling to operate effectively.
By creating a custom solution which combined and customised off the shelf modules available via a Wordpress install, a bespoke and tailored solution was delivered at a reasonable cost which could tick all the boxes and allow for future incremental improvements.
User Experience
Each morning, staff can login to the Extranet from their desktop or mobile. The home page provides them with the latest notices and staff holiday/sickness details. It also regularly features polling questions to get their input and feedback on management issues.
They can edit their profile at anytime and review any HR details they need including an interactive staff handbook. Holiday requests are submitted to their line manager and once approved (or rejected) this is communicated back to the team member by email. Overtime requests are recorded and records accessed by the payroll team with one click without having to email requests to all line managers across the Group.
If they need to record themselves or another team member as sick, they simply fill in a form which registers them as sick on the home page.
A calculator allows them to quickly select print production method, quantity, up to date paper costs and finishing details to generating competitive pricing models.
If they need an outsourced supplier recommendation for a specialist print process, the supplier database provides them with multiple suggestions and rated results.
ISO9001 error reporting can be achieved in just a couple of clicks and management analysis reports pulled off in seconds.
The whole Extranet system has streamlined and cemented the business operations processes in a way that is relevant to the team members using it.
Project Marketing
Upon launch, Cascade Studio ran a series of demonstrations and presentations at each of the Group's locations to gain team member buy in.
Directors and line managers promoted engagement by ensuring sickness, holiday and overtime requests had to be submitted via the site.
Cascade Group also found that upon demoing the site to the ISO9001 assessor, we had actually fast tracked certification by 2-3 months anticipating and delivering functionality that businesses operating from a single location wouldn't need to consider.
We have since created an Android and iPhone app which allows the team to access core functionality when on the move or out of the office.
Originally launched in Beta, feedback from all staff has formed the basis for continual improvements and additional functionality.
Project Privacy
The Extranet has been installed on a server with SSL certification and all content has been locked up and secured to be viewed only by logged in team members.
Digital - Business Operations
From managing personnel, project management and customised apps and tools for specific business processes and tasks, what will stand out here will be those that make it easier for businesses to run both day to day operations and improve their business functionality and efficiency.
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