Business Impact Article - Posted 5/11/2007
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International oil and metals trader improves efficiency and collaboration with new system
Trafigura, a global oil and metals trader, has vast quantities of information spread across the organisation. This ranges from pictures of the latest Christmas parties to vital contracts and financial information. It used to be stored haphazardly in public folders, network drives, and e-mail archives, which meant that the company’s 1,000 employees sometimes found it difficult to track down information. Because the company operates from 55 offices around the world, organising the information is a greater challenge than usual.
“We wanted a portal—a single point to access company information,” says Barry Weatherstone, the company’s chief information officer. He envisaged a single Web site with company directories, phone, and office details. The site would provide easy access to documents like expense forms, application systems, and automated reports. This is in addition to general information such as news, policies, and photos from corporate events around the world.
Looking beyond the usual intranet features, he also planned a document handling system. Trafigura deals with many physical documents such as contracts and shipping paperwork. By moving them over to a central database, he hoped to be able to search and access files more efficiently. Barry turned to Core, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, to help his company implement Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 as the solution to the challenges he faced. Core helped Trafigura build an intranet site and document management solution. The goal, according to Barry, is that “if people want to find information or initiate a business process, they can do it all on SharePoint Server.”
The relationship with Core has been very successful, according to Barry. “Their experience in implementing previous SharePoint Server solutions has made it a success.”
Trafigura does a lot of business in partnership with other companies. It needs to be able to work with local companies and tap into their expertise. So there is a need to share some, but by no means all, of Trafigura’s data with these partners. SharePoint Server allows the company to control exactly who has access to information using tags, so that sharing information is both easy and secure.
Another benefit is that people can easily find information they didn’t know existed. Browsing through the portal, they can find a floor plan for an office they are visiting, or they can search for specific help topics relating to their in-house application systems. It has a business benefit because it helps new people get up to speed more quickly.
However, the biggest benefit is efficiency. All the information people need will be available on the site, and it will be easy to find using search. The result: “Less time rooting around in filing cabinets and tracking down files on different servers around the world, more time getting on with the job.”
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
