The Situation
Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) is dedicated to helping New Zealanders enjoy and excel through sport and recreation. SPARC invests over $70 million a year with a focus on creating opportunities across the spectrum from youth and schools to high performance on the international stage. ‘Push Play’ and ‘Kiwisport’ have become household names. SPARC turned the spotlight on its own performance, seeking a dynamic SharePoint platform that would drive information across its business in a more productive and active way. First off the blocks, their existing intranet was well overdue for renewal. Content was static with little interaction and search functions were limited. Past its use by date, it was running on empty.
“We wanted a single real-time place to launch from to give our business units the ability to own and drive their own information and to lift productivity.” Stu Jacobs, SPARC Senior Advisor, Information Services.
The Pain
Manual processes and static information had no place in a clearly active organisation like SPARC.
Coaching information to the surface with SharePoint.
SPARC is no different to many organisations that are trying to leverage information held within the business. With information living in so many repositories these days, such as CRM applications, email, file shares and finance applications – and the list goes on, SharePoint has the ability to provide a central view of information. Some businesses stumble at building a business case to make the investment needed. SPARC is an excellent case of hitting the investment sweetspot by gaining incremental value through a series of business project scenarios. Stu Jacobs explains that SPARC intends to leverage value over time. “Given that SharePoint offers huge potential and considering, like most organizations, we were not in a position to adopt a large amount of change in one go, we chose to take small high-value steps. The updated intranet was the beginning, and the ability to automate existing manual process and to collect/disseminate information more efficiently was an exciting proposition.
Part of our vision was to provide our business units with a tool they could own and drive and thus see their contribution to the success of the business. HR, IT and Marketing were first in the game in terms of driving the new intranet. The view from day one was to let these business units get a feel for what was possible with SharePoint and from here we will target key parts of the business.”
“Intergen’s name comes up time and time again.”
Possessing an experienced IT team of its own, SPARC sought a partner who would challenge their ideas and add value. “In speaking to other industry leaders, Intergen’s name came up repeatedly. It is reassuring to know we are using a respected business partner. I’ve appreciated Intergen’s ability to adapt, change and source the right resources as one of their great strengths and how they look for what’s possible ahead.”
Downstream from the intranet go-live, SPARC and Intergen are automating Ministerial Questions into an online process and developing a Knowledge Management strategy for document management and compliance issues.
The Gain
There is plenty on SPARC’s roadmap for SharePoint. More business process automation is key, with a focus on making resources on the intranet available via an extranet to SPARC staff and stakeholders.
We wanted a single real-time place to launch from to give our business units the ability to own and drive their own information and to lift productivity.
Stu Jacobs, SPARC Senior Advisor, Information Services