State-owned entity implement portal solution to improve service to board
members
Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) is a South African State-owned Entity
(SOE) established in terms of Government Notice No 2631 (Government Gazette
No 10545) in 12 December 1986; that facilitates water security through the
planning, financing & implementation of bulk raw water infrastructure, in
the most cost effective manner.
Business Needs
The Trans-Caledonian Tunnel Authority (TCTA) is
responsible for various water infrastructure projects in South Africa.
As a state-owned entity, all executive decisions
are undertaken by a Board who jointly assess and decide upon million; and
sometimes billion rand projects in the pursuit of securing fresh water
infrastructure.
Board members are selected from various industry
and government sectors across the country and predominantly comprise shop
stewards, union members, councillors, members or Parliament and alike.
In some instances, board members serve on more
than one board and are not always available to fulfil all their functions.
As projects are identified and budgets need to be
allocated or prioritized, the TCTA Board members will be summoned to sit on such
matters.
This process became laborious, costly and slowed
down responses times as board members are situated in disparate locations and
have to commute to Centurion, Gauteng in order to meet.
Solution
TCTA identified the need for a collaborative
solution and engaged SharePointKonsult (SPK), to assess their needs and find a
working solution.
SharePointKonsult deployed Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007 as the collaboration platform for TCTA.
“The Board Portal is an internet facing site with
secure access. Users are managed by Microsoft Active Directory on the local
network which allows the IT department within TCTA to retain control of all
users”, says Paul Niemand – Lead SharePoint Consultant for SPK
The Board Portal allows TCTA to notify board
members of updates, manage events via a centralized calendar, share documents,
discuss topics, vote on pertinent issues and maintain member details with the
use of MySites, all in a single and secure environment.
“Our Board members our now truly empowered!” says
Tlale Mokutu, Board Secretary for TCTA. ”We are able to rapidly respond to and
resolve issues a lot more effectively now”
SharePointKonsult implemented the TCTA Board
Portal Solution in less than 2 months after initial planning and achieved 100%
user adoption.
Board Secretary for TCTA, Tlale Mokutu was under
constant pressure to arrange board meeting as well as logistics like flights,
accommodation and car rentals for Board Members.
Not only were these logistics costly, TCTA had no
control over the availability of all its board members as some members serve on
more than one Board, further complicating travel arrangements.
“Last minute bookings are always a challenge,”
says Tlale, “they are more costly and put pressure on internal staff. Untimely
board meetings are not only costly to our business but the state as well, as
they delay projects.
The content management features of the board
portal enable staff members to notify members quickly and easily with a built-in
workflow approval process.
Benefits
SharePoint enables TCTA to realize several returns
on its investment, besides the obvious cost-benefits.
Secure Access
As an integrated server technology, Microsoft
SharePoint enables TCTA to manage all its users on the same authentication
server, Microsoft Active Directory (AD).
“SharePoint gives us the freedom to add and manage
our users with Active Directory as and when we need to”, says Nikesh Maharaj,
TCTA’s IT Administrator, “we don’t need to use any other technologies making
administration easy”
Document Management
As with any board, various documents are produced
from time to time and as a project-centric organization, it is not uncommon that
these documents undergo several renditions before they are finalized.
Microsoft SharePoint with document version and
authoring control enables members to check out documents while making changes,
enabling all board members to see one version of the truth
Improved audit trails
With Microsoft SharePoint, metadata associated
with various content types easily enable users to see information about content
that was not previously available.
“This is actually a very under-rated feature,”
says Tlale Mokutu, “Previously, we sent hundreds of emails with content and
struggled to maintain the most up to date version. Now, we can all see when and
who uploaded content, made changes to it and how many versions exist. This makes
my job a lot easier as I can now see up to date content with the assurance that
it was reviewed by the relevant person.”
Enhanced Search Capabilities
The powerful search capability of Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007 made searching for content far more pleasant than before.
Enterprise Search was configured with search scopes that were geared and tuned
towards content that board members most commonly used on a day-to-day basis.
Members are able to find exactly what they are looking for within seconds,
further reducing time & improving productivity.
Reduced stress on infrastructure
As with any organization, email is often
overlooked as a key stress point on infrastructure.
“People don’t realize that sending attachments
back and forth is expensive,” says Paul Niemand, Lead SharePoint Consultant for
SPK, “not only on storage space but email can easily put stress on the entire
network. It is much more efficient to store content centrally than do distribute
content over an entire audience”
Unlocking tacit knowledge
The TCTA board portal makes use of discussion
forums in order to discuss and comment on various topics.
“At first, we didn’t know how the board members
would react to social networking”, says Nonzwakazi Chesalokile, IT Business
Analyst for TCTA, “so introducing a discussion forum was an act of faith. Board
members are now able to share their knowledge with each other and add depth and
insight to topics.”
