Saint Gobain’s new Intranet portal with Liferay

Walking along with the pace of technology is not a trend but a means to survive this tech-driven world today! But the success of this new vision of industries is only possible if the users are satisfied, both customers and employees. Creating a personalized experience for users is more than a nice-to-have in today’s digitally empowered industries.

Ideas now are the new capital! And following this path, Saint Gobain launched its new Intranet Portal with Liferay for both employees and customers.

Saint Gobain, one of the largest industry groups in the world with over 200,000 employees across 64 countries work to co-create and bring innovation to businesses in varied fields.

But a quarter of Saint Gobain’s products didn’t exist five years back, they had to sustain their key source of growth, that was Innovation. They required a quality information system and this need was closely fulfilled with Liferay’s Intranet Portal. The Portal immediately solved all the challenges that the company was facing.

• Outdated System – The existing information portal accessed by 12,000 users every day, had become outdated and lacked flexibility
• Slow response time – Employees used to log in anonymously or by their user details but the response time was extremely slow. Hence, they wanted their user journey to be improvised.
• Poor content management -The content management was very poor, they wanted their users to manage content and create web pages themselves as per their roles.
• Servers – they wanted to reduce the number of their servers.

Why Liferay?

Liferay ‘s Intranet Portal was the best solution to Saint Gobain since Liferay is known for its user-friendliness and easy adaptability. Secondly, it reflected the mindset of the users, It was very easy for the employees to use the new digital tool in the company and get used to its features and many benefits. They picked up the tech-tool instantly. And lastly, Liferay allows easy integration with the existing third-party applications.

How the intranet portal enhances user journey across their website?

• Easy access to Data – The company wanted to equip its departments better. All the important information regarding business processes, employees and target customers were under one Intranet connected database that allowed better understanding and quick access to information at the time of need.
• Unified user experience – The portal integrated all the enterprise systems into one interface for end-users. But the employee could choose from the entire page as per needs. This allowed the employees to have a dynamic and very responsive web experience by loading only that part of the page which they need rather than loading the entire page.
• Localization and multi-linguism – Saint Gobain is working in 64 countries across the globe, but it had to have a unique experience for its users from region to region maintaining the authenticity of the website. The Intranet portal made it localized as per region, by creating different websites in different languages, maintaining the same look and feel of the Saint Gobain theme.
• Content management as per roles – The users could now manage their website according to their personal choice, in the way they see fit. They could create their own pages and content and keep a check on their members. The portal allowed multiple users to access a single URL and see a unique page view or content based on their role.
• Mobile ready – The portal made the website responsive to multiple devices from mobile to tablet to desktop maintaining the Saint Gobain theme, and the same look and feel of the website with faster load time.

How did the Liferay’s Intranet portal improve productivity and increased efficiency of the business?

Audience targeting for customized campaigns – This allowed the employees from different franchises’ locations to log into their intranet, and know about promotions, new products and other significant information of their location. This provided them with the information that was relevant to them and not get them confused, increasing the individual productivity of that user.

Individual Customized Dashboards – Each user had a custom dashboard based on the applications used daily. Using the drag-and-drop design, the employees could optimize their dashboards as per their needs.

Robust, scalable and flexible – In less than an hour the Digital Solutions Team had the website created with the Saint Gobain theme and had trained users. There was no particular model used but due consistency was maintained in navigation. The portal allows quick and easy access, changes can be made in no time as per the present and past requirements of the user. Using the portal was very flexible.

The Liferay Intranet Portal helped employees to come back on track, where co-creation and creativity was the lifeblood for the business

#challenge1
I cannot find what I want!
The employees were not able to get the right content in time for their specific requirements as per their roles and campaigns which led their innovation base to reduce relatively. The company was able to come up with no new products. Where in Intranet combined out-of-the-box knowledge bases, forums and tagging with a powerful search engine. Knowledge bases and forums help to find relevant information and tagging helps to organize that data found. Thus, Intranet provided a full proof solution to employee’s search challenges

#challenge2
Our search technology does not work!
Effective information retrieval and knowledge management can never be achieved with outdated technology. The company was lacking effectively governed processes and trained employees to carry out those processes. This was resolved with Intranet. The portal comes with in-built governance and content management tools ensuring that the employees are able to adapt it easily and ensure a higher success rate.

#challenge3
I need to fix top-down communication!
Saint Gobain was struggling to keep the right teams informed about important information such as new products launch, company announcements, policies, etc.
Therefore, the intranet portal unified all the interfaces as a unique page, so that all the employees get to know the relevant information as per requirements from time to time and communication amongst the employees and the business is not hampered.

Thus, Liferay’s Intranet Portal fully met all the expectations of Saint Gobain. It just transformed the entire working pattern at the company. The user journey improvised, servers reduced and portal traffic doubled. Getting back at its strength of innovation and creativity Saint Gobain with Liferay’s Intranet Portal is a huge success!

CUSTOMER – THE HEART OF BUSINESS

For any business to be successful today the ability to reach audiences touchpoints is imperative. All the hype for improving user experience isn’t for nothing. Once the businesses get it right, the payoff is phenomenal.

Saint Gobain is just one out of several others who have reached this milestone of an extraordinary digital experience for its customers with Liferay, but there are many more who are sailing in the same boat and have made a mark for themselves.

Read more about other success stories with Liferay DXP:

https://www.teamcomputers.com/team-blog/liferay-airbus/

https://www.teamcomputers.com/team-blog/liferay-west-bend

Disclaimer: The information within this case study is based on facts, research, and recent achievements of Airbus and Liferay solely. This is in no relation to any work done by Team Computers Pvt. Ltd.