King Sturge Intranet — case study
| Pages | 44-47 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040750 |
| Date | 01 February 2000 |
| Published date | 01 February 2000 |
| Author | Sarah Dobson |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
King Sturge Intranet -
case study
by Sarah Dobson, Information Centre
Manager, King Sturge
This article presents a case study
of
the
development
of an
Intranet in
a
medium
size,
multi-office professional
practice.
It
covers the
period from concept through
to
rollout.
Introduction
King Sturge (KS) is a firm of Chartered Surveyors
and international property consultants with a
network of 14 offices across the UK. Communica-
tion between offices and disciplines is critical to
the development of
the
firm and its business.
Why have an Intranet?
The stated aim of the KS Intranet project is to
develop an information environment for the
sharing and exchange of information firmwide, via
a user-friendly common interface offering access
to a wide range of applications and platforms.
To retain competitive edge it is essential that fee
earners maximise the time spent on fee earning
work. The corollary is that they should spend as
little time as possible recreating, duplicating or
finding information held elsewhere in the com-
pany. Therefore the benefits to KS of developing
an Intranet are perceived to be:
• To improve internal communications
and facilitate the exchange of
information across the firm
With more than 700 staff
in
14 locations
across the UK, communication is always a
potential problem. Local area networking in
individual offices has established the
concept of sharing information locally. One
central access point instead of
14
local
networks multiplies the benefits
considerably. Everyone working from the
same information will also lend a greater
consistency to our approach.
Although
e-mail
has greatly aided
communication across the network it has
become a victim of its own success with
many surveyors feeling overwhelmed by the
ever increasing volume of mail. The
Intranet provides a means to find out about
what is going on in the firm at a time and
pace to suit the individual, and will
hopefully prove a catalyst for the cross
selling of our services. In the medium term it
is hoped that bulletin boards will provide a
useful forum for discussion within, and
across disciplines.
• To eliminate the need for paper based
internal manuals and the need for their
multiple updating
With one central resource we can be sure
that everyone is referring to current
information whether this be our quality
assurance procedures, internal telephone
directory, or industry standards. Updating
this information in one central place will be
simpler and quicker -an updated Intranet
page is instantly available for all to see.
However one central reference point also
raises the problem that if the Intranet is not
kept up to date then 700 people will be using
out dated information. The only consolation
is that, at least, they would be doing so
consistently!
• To save money
The reduced paper, copying and labour costs
savings from the eradication of paper
manuals are obvious. In addition there will
be cost saving from a greater efficiency in
gathering information. A central databank
of CVs for example makes a tender bid
much faster to compile rather than
contacting a dozen people individually to
obtain them. However it should be noted
that in terms of publications such as
looseleaf
manuals,
switching to an electronic
version is not necessarily cheaper by the
time licences have been agreed.
• To provide a common interface to a
number of internal systems
Our aim is to draw all internal (and a
number of external) information systems
into the Intranet. Such an assumption will
inform all decisions on format and
availability thus improving consistency.
By co-ordinating our resources at one point
we will also be able to highlight any gaps in
provision.
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