2 page Case Study - Posted 3/26/2012

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BC Hydro

BC Hydro experts tap into power of social networking with the help of SharePoint 2010

BC Hydro is Canada’s third-largest electrical utility, providing electricity to 94 per cent of the province’s population. It’s also recognized as a pioneer in the area of power conservation and generating energy in a socially responsible way. With thousands of employees spread across a massive area, one of the biggest challenges BC Hydro faces is ensuring that everyone has access to the same timely, accurate information no matter where they work. Working with Habaňero Consulting Group, BC Hydro built a new extranet for Energy Managers using Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010. The site is designed to help the group come together, share ideas and exchange best practices in real time, whether it’s on a PC, browser or mobile device.

BC Hydro is Canada’s third-largest electrical utility, providing electricity to 94 per cent of the province’s population. It’s also recognized as a pioneer in the area of power conservation and generating energy in a socially responsible way.

Situation

"Our office spans the entire province, and the extranet is vital to our jobs. It takes everything that we had written down or in our heads and puts it into a visual, easy-to-manage platform." Susan Doig, Energy Manager, Capilano University

Among the many services BC Hydro provides is a program to help large energy users hire full-time, in-house Energy Managers. These experts can help companies cut their energy costs, achieve their environmental targets, and build a stronger competitive advantage. Companies who qualify for the program can get a portion of the manager’s salary paid for by BC Hydro.

Although managers are scattered across the province, they’re also colleagues. They meet quarterly but try to stay connected throughout the year in order to share best practices and bounce ideas off one another.

“I work in Vancouver, but one of my most experienced colleagues works on Vancouver Island. We play a lot of telephone tag trying to figure out ‘How are you doing this?’ It can be hard to reach each other and it creates a time-lag issue when I need information,” says Susan Doig, Energy Manager, Capilano University.

Working with Habaňero Consulting Group, BC Hydro built a new extranet for Energy Mangers using Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010. The site is designed to help the group come together, share ideas and exchange best practices in real time, whether it’s on a PC, browser or mobile device.

The My Site feature of SharePoint 2010 helps provide Energy Mangers with a range of social networking features. They include a My Networks page for managing colleagues, interests, and news feed settings, a My Content page for managing documents and photos, and a My Profile page for managing user profile information.

“I think the one thing we're starting to recognize is that work is inherently social. I don't think teamwork and collaboration is really possible until you know who people are, and until you know how - even broadly speaking - you're related to them. SharePoint 2010 helps us work toward building a social culture,” says Atwater.

“Rather than implementing another solution from another vendor, SharePoint 2010 provides BC Hydro with a very familiar interface and Facebook-like capabilities. It helps them get more value from their existing investments in Microsoft Office and related technologies,” adds Will Hardy, Solution Specialist, Habaňero

A culture of collaboration

No longer do managers have to call or email each other with questions. With the new extranet in place, they simply log onto to each other’s My Sites, post and watch how-to videos, leave comments and ask questions, and get the information they need to make a difference for their employers.

“Our office spans the entire province, and the extranet is vital to our jobs. It takes everything that we had written down or in our heads and puts it into a visual, easy to manage platform,” says Doig.

Less time managing content

The publishing capabilities of SharePoint 2010 have also proven beneficial. Using existing toolsets, it can take the BC Hydro Web team as many as 20 different steps to post content to its intranet, which together can add up to 30 minutes per page. In SharePoint 2010, users can enter the edit stage with a single click, upload material, and the changes are complete.

“With a conservative estimate, I’d say that would reduce the amount of time it takes people to manage web content by a factor of two, even three. That to me is a key benefit,” says Atwater.

Ongoing return on investment

BC Hydro plans to implement Office 2010 in coming months, and already there are plans to expand the use of SharePoint 2010 beyond the Energy Manager community. “Since the relatively recent launch of the site, we've had a number of other inquiries from other communities that have similar needs,” says Hardy.

Adds Atwater: “Our plans for SharePoint are quite ambitious. When I look at the potential for the platform, it provides an opportunity to create a seamless experience for all of our audiences, for our customers, employees and for partners. The evidence that we've gained from the Energy Managers pilot bolsters our business case for really looking at SharePoint 2010 as a standardized front-end.”