Airborne Consulting implements Sharepoint portal at V&A

Airborne Consulting, a specialist IT consulting company, has developed and implemented an intranet solution for the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.

The V&A Waterfront is a mixed-use property development located around the historic Victoria and Alfred Basins which formed Cape Town's original harbour. Situated between Table Mountain and Robben island, the V&A Waterfront attracts approximately 20 million visits annually, and is the top tourist destination in South Africa.

The V&A Waterfront company acts as both developer and property manager in terms of tenanting, security, cleaning, maintenance, marketing and administration. And with 800 staff, the challenge was to ultimately enable everyone more efficient collaboration, streamlined content management, and to consolidate access to lines of business applications.

With the existing intranet proving inadequate, Airborne Consulting was tasked with providing an innovative and reliable, unified portal and collaboration solution which would be accessible to all staff members. The portal framework was developed in just one month and with only one Airborne consultant, while the population of content is ongoing based on each department's requirements and objectives.

Based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and the Microsoft Office System, the new portal delivers role-specific content, eases collaboration with enhanced document version control, and provides a single point of entry for all V&A Staff members.

Commenting on the portal solution, Cyril Belikoff, Information Worker Business Group Executive, Microsoft South Africa says: "Airborne has leveraged the new 2007 Microsoft Office System to deliver some great value to the V&A organisation. The fact that both Airborne and the V&A Waterfront have managed to receive this value prior to the product being complete says a lot about the ability of Airborne, the product and the solution."

The decision to implement a Microsoft solution was based on several key factors, including the ability to reduce cost by utilising existing Microsoft technologies. For example, tight integration of SharePoint Portal Server with previously deployed Active Directory enables information to be targeted to individuals based on roles, using existing 'Users and Groups' administration services. In addition, tighter integration among SharePoint Portal Server, Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Office 2007 promises increased productivity through easier access to SharePoint workspaces directly from within familiar Office 2007 programs.

Chris Lazari, IT Manager for the V&A Waterfront, says: "The implementation of SharePoint has allowed the V&A Waterfront to maximise the full benefit of the upgraded Microsoft infrastructure, and aligns all our systems to the envisioned strategy we have for all IT at the Waterfront for the medium- to long-term. With SharePoint as the engine of our strategy we are now able to offer relevant information whenever and wherever it is needed by any of the Waterfront's many stakeholders."

Anthony Peters, Executive Manager for Finance and Central Services at the V&A, observes: "The newly implemented system now enables us to allow access to information on a more proactive basis - users now no longer have to wait to be fed critical information. As the users are now able to drive their own requirements, the advantages are already manifesting as greater efficiency with quicker access to cleaner lines of communication, and we're seeing a greater level of interactivity between multiple users."

Further benefits of this successful implementation include reduced administrative support needs, more efficient collaboration, fewer remote access help-desk calls, and a reduction in content update requests.