The certificate attests to the fact that Fild.NET has a good financial condition, and the risk of transactions with the company is less than the average on the market. The certificate also confirms that Fild.NET systematically implements its financial obligations (see the certificate).

D&B is a leading provider of global business information, tools and insight, which has enabled companies to decide with confidence for over 170 years. Customers use D&B Risk Management Solutions to mitigate risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability and D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions to increase revenue from existing customers and to start cooperation with the new ones. More information on D&B can be found at: http://www.dnb.com.pl.

The offices in the classical sense – with employees sitting at their desks in the noise of constantly ringing phones – are moving past thanks to new information and communication technologies. The development of IT services has raised comfort of working environment, as well as the efficiency of employees who manage their time better. All this allows companies to better exploit the potential of employees to meet their business objectives.

“Entrepreneurship is the key to the development of societies” – said Ilona Tomaszewska, responsible for the contacts of the Polish branch of Microsoft with the sector of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). – “Therefore it is important to provide entrepreneurs with access to the tools that will support them in running their companies while allowing them to fully concentrate on making money. Such tools are the IT services from the cloud that can streamline workflow, group work and contacts with customers, and at the same time are not associated with incurring high investment costs, laborious and time-consuming implementation and maintainance of the IT infrastructure, because they are available online, and a client bears costs only for what he actually uses.”

Polish SMEs more and more use solutions based on cloud computing. This happens for several reasons. First of all technologies available in the form of services allow you to respond quickly to rapidly changing market environment, that is to be more flexible. Secondly, the online services increase efficiency while being cost-effective. Because of these facts IT services from the cloud are an alternative to costly IT projects and maintaining own IT infrastructure, freeing up resources and funds that can be transferred to other purposes.

“We got convinced to implementation of online services in our company by an analysis that has been done for us by our partner Fild.NET. We have been cooperating with this company for a long time in the provision and operation of IT solutions and we relay on their opinion in this regard entirely” – said Dariusz Milczarek, CEO of Sandler Training, which operates in the training industry, offering innovative training in the area of sales skills and sales management. – “The analysis has showed that we can significantly reduce IT costs in our organization and utilize the most advanced solutions offered by Microsoft. Thanks to the decision to implement the online services we have received access to all services required by us, without the cost of investment in fixed assets, equipment and software. In addition, we have not needed to incur the costs necessary to build technical competence to be able to manage this environment, so we can invest available resources in the development of our core business.”
Up to now it was necessary to spend a lot of money on infrastructure to set up a business. Now you can reduce these costs to just purchasing computers with legally installed an operating system and a web browser, subscribing to the Internet domain and Internet access. All the rest, that is, software and servers, may be available as online services. In this way, entrepreneurs can focus on running their own business, and Internet service providers take upon themself to ensure the smooth operation and availability of such a functioning infrastructure and applications.

“I think online solutions are the vey close future. We prepare ourselves for offering some of our services in a similar manner. It is enough to simply get rid of the psychological barrier of fear, and each successive step in using this type of service allows us to see the advantages and achieve real benefits “ – adds Dariusz Milczarek.

IT services available in the form of cloud computing are also linked to another benefit for the entrepreneurs, which is the ability to effectively manage the company from anywhere. With cloud computing businesses and employees have access to critical business data and documents via a web browser and a Windows Phone 7. With these tools people can participate in strategic meetings being physically hundreds of miles from company headquarters. The same applies to working in a group, because the cloud allows you to work on documents of several people simultaneously, each of which may be in another place.

“Time is money, entrepreneurs know it best, especially these ones who missed the unique business opportunities because they do not manage to prepare their bids” – said Ilona Tomaszewska. – “Cloud computing makes time management much easier and deadlines cease to be a problem. At the same time the online services reduce the response time to changing business market conditions.”

The agreement enriches Fild.NET’s offer with specialized and innovative tools needed to build effective telecommunications systems. AudioCodes is one of the global leaders in the technology of voice compression and transmission in packages. The company’s products – including hybrid VoIP gateways (Media Pack and Mediant) and Session Border Controllers – are aimed at telecommunications operators, Internet service providers and large companies that use VoIP technology for business communications. The advantage of AudioCodes solutions is the fact that they allow to combine the existing, traditional telecommunications infrastructure (telephones, fax machines, PBX) and IP networks.

“Fild.NET has a range of competencies and expertise related to the creation of integrated communication systems, such as SOA and Business Process, Business Intelligence or Unified Communication, based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. We have in our portfolio several implementation of Microsoft OCS, in which result effective VoIP, audio and video conferencing systems have been created. The cooperation with AudioCodes enhances our capabilities in the area of telecommunications solutions and allows us to offer our clients specialized technologies that respond to their needs”- says Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET Sp. z o.o.

The cooperation taken by both companies is a pan-European and obliged Fild.NET to conduct a series of projects for Kelly’s branches located in Europe. The first project is to create the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) based on Microsoft BizTalk Server. The solution is to enable quick and easy exchange of data between Kelly’s systems, applications and services. This integration will allow for the creation of effective business processes and their automated management. Employees of Kelly European headquarters in Switzerland will be the first ones to take advantage of the new tool. Afterwards the Kelly’s branches from across the areas of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) will be attached to the new solution. Fild.NET will also provide a second line of support and development services for just being created a nearshoring center of Kelly Services.

“Looking for a partner we have reviewed the candidates in many European countries. We took into account not only substantial experience and competences, but also the culture and communications skills. We are pleased that we can work with the company, which corresponds to our expectations so well”- said Eric Surdez, Technical Applications Architecture Manager at Kelly Services.

“Kelly Services is a great organization, with huge traditions and indisputable position in the industry. Establishing strategic relationships with such a partner is a confirmation of competencies of Fild.NET and our philosophy of action, consisting in specialization only in solutions from Microsoft – the biggest and most popular business software producer in the world. It is also proof that we can effectively compete on the demanding European market “- emphasizes Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET Sp. z o.o.

Kelly Services Inc. (www.kellyservices.pl) was founded in 1946, focusing initially on services related to recruitment of temporary workers. The company has managed to maintain its leading position in the human resource management industry for over half a century, and this was possible thanks to the activity based on the principle of “investing in people.” Kelly has been developing together with the market, always trying to meet new demands and trends. Today, Kelly is one of the largest companies in the HR sector – it is represented in 38 countries, providing employment to more than 750.000 people every year. The Kelly’s revenue in 2008 amounted to 5.5 billion dollars. In 2007, Kelly has set up a branch in Poland by taking over Talents Poland Sp. z o.o., operating since 1999.

Fild.NET now has the status of Microsoft Gold Partner in the following areas: “Business Process Solutions and Integrations”, “Information Worker Solutions”, “Data Management Solutions”. The new specialization confirms the qualifications of Fild.NET’s engineers in creating integrated communication systems based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. These products enable the implementation of effective telecommunications solutions, including VoIP telephony, unified messaging, and audio and video conferences.

“In a highly competitive economy, organizations look for technological tools that allow them to increase operational efficiency while reducing costs. The concept of the Microsoft Unified Communications – integrating all communication channels in one environment – helps to realize this assumption and achieve competitive advantage. Tools such as video conferencing, Internet telephony, e-mail, instant messaging, can significantly affect the reduction in travel expenses, training, and office space. Allowing quick and easy communication, the new tools will also help employees to carry out their tasks and projects more effectively – says Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET Sp. z o.o.

Fild.NET has conducted a number of implementations related to the area of communication. Most of them were associated with integrating or replacing the existing telephone exchanges. One of the most interesting projects Fild.NET has been involved in was the introduction of an IT system based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 in Inter Cars SA. The system has provided a unified and efficient communication environment for more than 120 branches and 3,000 employees of InterCars SA. Fild.NET currently has a number of competencies and expertise related to the creation of integrated communication systems: SOA and Business Process, Business Intelligence, Unified Communication (Voice), Information Worker Solutions (Enterprise Project Management Specialization, Enterprise Content Management and Forms Specialization), Microsoft Business Solutions Competency (Microsoft Dynamics CRM Specialization). The company is also a provider of Microsoft SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS).

The conference will be held on 13 January 2009 in the Mercedes-Benz Conference Center located at Gottlieb Daimler Street 1 in Warsaw. It can be of interest to the people managing companies that have implemented or plan to implement management standards based on ISO. Fild.NET’s experts will present the most cost effective opportunities to improve key processes associated with creating and managing document versions, managing audits as well as corrective and repairing actions, resulting from the implementation of Microsoft Office Share Point Server 2007.
The special guest speaker at the conference will be Dr. Eng. Janusz B. Berdowski – Head of Quality Management at the School of Management in Warsaw, an expert on the United Nations – UNIDO for certification, and first director of the Polish Center for Testing and Certification. He will be the inaugural speaker of the conference.

Agenda of the conference:

9:30 – 10:05 Registration and morning coffee
10:05 – 10:10 Opening of the conference – Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET
10:10 – 10:30 Inaugural lecture – Integrated quality management system as an improvement of the tools of the organization – Dr. Eng. Janusz B. Berdowski
10:30 – 11:00 A situation, problems and solutions in the process of creating and maintaining documentation – an expert of Fild.NET
11:00 – 11:20 A situation, problems and solutions in the process of audit – an expert of Fild.NET
11:20 – 11:45 Coffee break
11:45 – 12:05 A situation, problems and solutions in the management of corrective and repairing actions – an expert of Fild.NET
12:05 – 12:20 What other processes can be improved in a similar way – an expert of Fild.NET
12:20 – 12:40 Case study – a description of the initial situation and implementation at the client
12:40 – 12:50 Closing remarks – Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET
13:00 – 13:40 Lunch

Any questions regarding the conference can be addressed to Anna Obiegała, tel +48 515 275 546, E-mail: anna.obiegala@fild.net. Admission is free.

About Fortis Bank
Fortis Bank is part of the Fortis group, which was established in 1990 through a merger of the largest Belgian insurance company AG 1824 with the Dutch group AMEV / VSB. The group’s activities throughout the world consists mainly of two divisions: banking and insurance.
In Poland, Fortis Group operates mainly through Fortis Bank Poland SA (FBP), but also through Fortis Securities Poland SA (former Polish Brokerage House) and the newly formed Fortis Lease Sp. z o.o. The Bank employs nearly 1,000 employees in 18 branches in Poland, its headquarter is in Warsaw.

The challenge
The Customer Profitability System was implemented in Fortis Bank Polska in 2001. Its objectives were, among others, to aggregate income statements at various levels, to determine the profitability of distribution channels and product profitability. Unfortunately, this solution did not solve the problem of budgeting. At the budgeting process the Excel program was used extensively – on average annually thousands of files in different versions had been sent. While in the initial stage of the Bank’s operations such a solution seemed to be effective – at a later stage both the management of the budgeting process and its use by the users became more difficult. The main problem was to control the changes – both in the assumptions for the budget and in the budget itself. Changes in the structure of accounts or organizational structure resulted in poor distribution on account through the macros. In turn, many versions of the budget, the introduction of amendments at the last minute and difficulties to control one, the current version of the budget often resulted in duplication of work and its extension. The whole process generated excessive administrative costs and made it difficult for the Bank to control the costs and budgets precisely.

As a result of this situation, the Bank began to consider the use of a solution, which in the simplest yet most effective way could solve the problem. The Bank considered several systems of different suppliers but it seemed a natural step to extend the technology, which was the basis for the Banks’s current data warehouse – of Oracle or Cognos. Unfortunately, costs associated with the purchase of additional licenses and implementation were much higher than for a solution based entirely on Microsoft technologies.

During the analysis there have been noticed a few essential elements of the existing situation:

• Employees like the screen of Microsoft Excel. It turned out that the problem is not the program’s analytical possibilities and presentation of data, but data processing. To improve it, the Microsoft SQL Server database with a multidimensional Analysis Services for which Microsoft Excel naturally fits as a browser of the data has been used in the new solution.
• Employees are familiar with the browser, so downloading a file from the intranet should not be time consuming – as opposed to finding the next version of the budget from the stack of e-mails. Fortis Bank Polska has already obtained licenses necessary to implement the entire solution.

The solution

The solution is based on Microsoft SQL 2000 Server with Analysis Services as a place where all already used business rules, macros, functions, and budgetary assumptions are saved. Data arrives at the base from two sources: the data on the implementation are provided by the Bank’s transactional systems through properly prepared files, the planned data are introduced and edited manually by authorized employees. The user interface is Microsoft Excel, which communicates directly with the database. It makes the data more consistent, always up-to-date, and eliminates problems with e-mails and ever-changing versions. The access system uses Active Directory (AD) as a source of information about the rights of individual employees to specific data and reports. With this architecture, each employee can only see his data and group work is accelerating.
The data in the system is available for users in the form of PivotTable, so it is possible to generate reports in any format based on the available fields. The most important phases of the implementation was a phase to develop concepts and to test the solution. Concept development phase determined the whole shape of the solution. For this reason, a relatively long time was devoted to this phase by both the Fortis Bank Polska and Fild.NET. This resulted in a relatively short time to create a solution thanks to an agreed logic of the system and described business rules. Stage of testing and adjusting the system was the second most important element of the implementation. This translated into a quality of the solution, which enabled the Bank to develop the budget for 2005 already in the new tool.
Implementation was completed within a few months making available an integrated system of reporting and budgeting using analytics to more than 100 users throughout the Bank.

Business Benefits

The solution has improved the efficiency of the Bank’s operational activities (e.g. shortened time of servicing the reporting and cost budgeting process by 80%) and has allowed to keep some financial indicators at the desired level by avoiding significant capital expenditures for new IT solutions. In the context of further development plans of the Bank, such solutions that maximize available resources are the preferred course of action.

Better control of financial indicators

By centralizing the process of gathering controlling information, the data obtained are of better quality than before what enables employees to make better decisions. This is mainly due to the fact that by automating some repetitive elements of the process significant part of human errors have been eliminated.
In addition, by introducing access privileges to certain groups of data, the transparency of responsibility for the quality of data has increased. At the same time the possibility of introducing erroneous data where not needed or not by those who should has disappeared.
The solution also allows for faster and more accurate calculation of financial indicators. With the access privileges introduced, it is possible for multiple users to work on the budget and after the introduction of the data, they are immediately available for analysis. This allows for much faster execution of the analysis of “what-if” or estimating such forecasts for subsequent periods based on data about the implementation of the budget. In this situation, the information needs of the Board are much better met.

The most economical system, which has solved the problem

Wondering about the choice of the best solution for budgeting, Fortis Bank had to choose an alternative: to buy a system with ready-made business logic (for controlling), which then will be matched to the Bank’s needs – or to choose such a technology partner, which reflects the Bank’s existing business rules in a new system.
Fortis Bank has put on developing its own system because of several elements, the most important were:
• Knowledge of Microsoft Excel by employees of the Bank – including not only the ability to move through the program, but also practically minimal user training costs, minimal maintenance costs of the system and removing the perennial problem of all financial departments: “how to pass data from my system to Excel?”
• At least several times lower implementation costs compared to other, ready controlling systems – due to the fact that much of licenses to create the solution have been already in possession of the Bank.
• A reliable partner – Fild.NET, equipped with appropriate technology and having a great experience – guaranteed execution of work in accordance with the specifications and requirements of the Bank. The important factors there were also Fild.NET’s flexible approach to emerging changes in the course of the project and communication skills in the conduct of the whole project.

A user friendly interface

Microsoft Excel has got “a new face” in the new solution – the workers discovered that a familiar tool offers a much richer functionality than they originally thought. What’s more, new capabilities include not only the possibility of analysis (data mining) but also support the group work on a document, which is the budget plan. Thanks to the new system for collecting and accessing the data there was no need to download hundreds of files and reports from the stack of e-mails anymore. Instead of that, data is available from a single location for all participants of the process in an efficient and simple way.

Reducing the workload on employees

With the implementation of budgeting and reporting system, the employees of Fortis Bank’s controlling department spend less time on meeting the needs of reporting, modifying already defined sets of reports, and their distribution.
SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services provides a managed reporting environment with a defined level of protection, caching, distributing, accessing and reporting of usage. An integrated set of tools enables the IT department staff to centrally manage the creation and delivery of reports.
The budgeting and reporting system implemented in Fortis Bank is scalable – it can be expanded with the growth of the Bank.

Excelerator®

Excelerator is not a product licensed separately in the strict sense – it is the brainchild of Fild.NET that makes it possible to create a data warehouse or analytical system or the system supporting the budgeting process using only commonly available Microsoft technologies:
SQL Server 2000 or 2005 with Analysis Services and Reporting Services for the processing and data analysis, the Office – in particular Office Web Components for SharePoint product group collaboration and information management.

Fild.NET
Fild.NET directs its offer to medium and large companies. Depending on the size and individual needs of customers, proposed solutions are tailored to specific business processes of a company.
The offer of Fild.NET includes solutions of the three strategic competencies: Teamwork Supporting Systems (Project Portfolio Management – PPM, corporate portals, workflow), Business Intelligence (Excelerator – a system for budgeting, planning and reporting based on SQL Server) and Microsoft CRM.
The main idea of Fild.NET’s solutions is to maximize the use of Microsoft programs in the planned solutions. Thanks to such an approach, Fild.NET proposes cost-effective way to improve the functioning of the organization to customers, for whom the purchase of several different systems from different vendors is economically inefficient.

“We have been using SharePoint Server for a few years. We have analyzed the 2007 version yet in its Beta stage and have implemented it shortly after its premiere – due to a lot of new features such as in the field of process automation and permission management”- says Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET Sp. z o.o. “

One tool can have many faces, assisting the company in many different areas. When Fild.NET began its adventure with the Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server 2003 portal platform, the primary need was to find easily information in the rapidly growing set of documents: specifications, tenders, projects, documentation, etc. – “SharePoint has proved to be an elegant tool for organizing and arranging the collection and flow of information in the company. We got to know this tool very well and learned how to use it to solve many different problems, our own and customers”- says Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET Sp. z o.o. from Warsaw.

Fild.NET previously used SharePoint Server 2003. – “When Microsoft released the 2007 version, we got interested in its capabilities in a natural way – it was for us one of the main tools. There were so many features in a new version that the decision to upgrade was obvious “- says Tomasz Pelczarski, Enterprise Account Manager at Fild.NET.

As a result of the upgrade Fild.NET’s internal work environment has become even more convenient and efficient. – “We have managed to combine offers, sales and service in a coherent sequence of processes, because the portal is now a natural link for the CRM system, the project management system, and corporate knowledge bases. It is also a carrier for the system of document circulation”- explains Tomasz Pelczarski.

The upgrade also paid off as for most of the program functions there have been provided much more configuration options to better fit the portal environment to the profile of each business and to individual needs. – “More opportunities in the field of protection and control access to information, more wizards, more scenarios of how to use the application – this is exactly what we needed” – says Andrzej Biesiekirski.

General information:

Country: Poland
Sector: Consulting and Implementation Services

Customer Information

Fild.NET is a fast growing company located in Warsaw, which specializes in solving business problems of large and medium-sized companies using Microsoft software.

The situation

Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server has been used by Fild.NET from version 2003. The solution has become the basis for group work of consultants and engineers and has been facilitating business cooperation with customers for several years.

The solution

With the advent of a new version of the platform – Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Fild.NET decided to upgrade. The company began an analysis of the functionality of the new version yet in the Beta phase of development and implemented it shortly after the official release.

Benefits

• Ease of defining processes and connecting them with applications, including Microsoft® CRM, Microsoft® Outlook, Microsoft® Project Server
• Easier access to the company accumulated knowledge and experience
• Precise and automated management of access to information, allowing to share data securely with partners and customers
• Richer information management capabilities, including document libraries, improved sorting, better contextualization, greater scalability

The description of the solution:

The situation

Fild.NET Sp. z o.o. specializes in solving business problems using IT systems created for individual orders. The company helps customers in building solutions in the following areas:

• decision support
• advanced data analysis
• domain reporting
• consolidated reporting
• business process management
• cooperation with business partners
• work-flow management
• project management
• effective knowledge management
• customer relationship management

Fild.NET also often creates custom applications to reflect and improve unique business processes.

The pursuit of such activities requires considerable organizational effort, planning, and systematic approach to knowledge management, processes and projects. To support this activity, in which each project is unique, the company needed a tool that would allow to prevail over both service activities and the processes of designing solutions.

“Our needs were limited to the extension of the existing mechanisms of collaboration tools and features that would allow people to effectively work on different types of projects – from business consulting to managing versions of software” – says Andrzej Biesiekirski, CEO of Fild.NET.

Fild.NET has found such features in Microsoft® Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The portal very quickly has become an essential tool in the company, making it easier for employees to collect and search for information contained in the rapidly growing library of documents.

The corporate portal of Fild.NET contains thematic document libraries with full-text indexing and search features, domain knowledge database, and applications that automate internal processes.

Working with information on the go is an area where Fild.NET has already benefited after the implementation of version 2003. – “Before, you had to carry everything with yourself and eventually synchronize all your e-mails. With the portal we all know where are the latest versions of documents. It is enough to just click on a link and download the latest file. No need to call anyone and ask – it is a very measurable benefit, because it allows people to work more effectively”- says Tomasz Pelczarski.

In the meantime Fild.NET has also implemented other management support tools. One of the most important was the Microsoft® Project Server, through which the company has been coordinating projects. Another important new application was Microsoft® CRM 3.0 – a solution to help manage sales, service and marketing.

“When three large information management environment have begun to operate side by side in our company, it became obvious that they must somehow get connected. Ultimately, each of them served to support the same customers, although at different stages of cooperation and in different areas. We wanted to integrate the systems through the SharePoint platform, but in that time we knew that soon there would be available the next beta version of the system, which is today’s SharePoint Server 2007 “- says Andrzej Biesiekirski.

Fild.NET decided to wait with the integration until getting acquainted with the capabilities of the new version of SharePoint, which was expected to offer significantly extended functionality. – “Once we had the opportunity to look at the 2007 version, it became clear that investing in the development of the current version did not make sense. Many of the needs that arose after the analysis of our previous work with the older version of SharePoint, the 2007 version offered almost out of the box”- adds Andrzej Biesiekirski.

The solution

Migrating from version 2003 to 2007 took place in early 2007 and lasted about 2 months. So much time was needed to transfer data, configure the new version in accordance with the wishes of users and determine which of the new features should be implemented and to what extent.

“The wealth of functionality of SharePoint Server 2007 may overwhelm at first glance, but yet there is no obligation to implement all functions. You can choose what your company really needs and what is likely to translate into greater efficiencies”- reports Thomas Pelczarski.

One of the novelties, which in the eyes of Fild.NET deserved the immediate use, was a strong portal integration with the environment of Active Directory. – “In the 2003 version, it was necessary to create mechanisms to ensure synchronization of database users and their privileges. In the 2007 version all happens automatically and permissions can be defined very precisely, what was not possible in the 2003 version. For example, permissions can be granted to individual documents, as opposed to individual libraries. It is more natural because users with different privileges use the same domain or project libraries. There is no need to create multiple libraries with different levels of rights” – explains Tomasz Pelczarski.

Effective integration of SharePoint and Active Directory was important from the standpoint of the company internal systems integration. SharePoint was supposed to become a seamless environment for managing customer support at all stages of cooperation by integrating Microsoft CRM 3.0, Microsoft Project Server 2003 and a number of applications running in the SharePoint portal.

“Currently, a user logged into one system will automatically be transferred to other systems by clicking on a link with his contacts, correspondence history or current status of work on a project. From the user point of view all the information is in the portal, but in fact he gets it from several different applications. Also thanks to this integration data entered in one environment end up in all the databases”- says Andrzej Biesiekirski.

The application integration has enabled the integration of internal business processes. For example, an order confirmed in the CRM system of Fild.NET is transformed into a project for which – based on the content of the agreement – there is being created a project schedule on a server. In the context of a new project designers and programmers can reach the database of knowledge to look for possible problems and solutions. In turn, salesmen and account managers have constant access to information about the progress of work.

“In the SharePoint 2007 version there are Web Parts ready components available in the portal, which automatically communicate with external applications and display information or links to resources in the appropriate context. The number and mode of action of these components shows that Microsoft has predicted a number of SharePoint usage scenarios. It really corresponds to our requirements as we are aware that there are ready-made solutions for the problems that we may have in the future”- adds Andrzej Biesiekirski.

SharePoint Server 2007 has brought many innovations in the field of information management. It is possible to specify a list of rules, especially for filtering and sorting information. In fact, you can customize every aspect of the portal. Each user can customize standard configuration to his needs or preferences – of course within the framework given to the role and associated privileges. Personalization is possible in such areas as the navigation or how to handle key functions in search results, as well as colors and patterns views.

Benefits of implementation

SharePoint Server 2007 has allowed Fild.NET to refresh its looking at own processes and in the same time has made it easy to improve them. – „A universal tool for managing the collection and sharing of information” – it is the definition of SharePoint Portal that Fild.NET’s staff will be happy to sign.

Among the obvious benefits of migration from SharePoint Portal 2003 to SharePoint Server 2007 Fild.NET can talk about:

• Ease of defining processes and easily connect them with other applications, including Microsoft® CRM, Microsoft® Outlook, Microsoft® Project Server
• Simpler and more intuitive than ever access to the company accumulated knowledge and experience
• Larger information management capabilities, including document libraries, better contextualization, improved sorting, greater scalability.
• Much more powerful customization environment to different processes and different user needs

Software and services

Products

• Microsoft® Office System 2007
• Microsoft® Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft® Project Server 2007

A partner

Fild.NET’s own implementation

More information about SharePoint Server 2007 and Fild.NET is available at www.microsoft.pl.

About the company
With the acquisition by the U.S. company Exide Corporation, Centra has gained access to modern technologies and management methods and markets.

The challenge
After the acquisition of Centra SA by Exide Technologies, the rate of production has significantly increased. The new owner has invested in the Centra’s factory in Poznan and it has given the factory access to new technologies. Centra SA, as the first company in Poland, has received a certificate confirming compliance of quality management systems with the guidelines of ISO / TS 16 949 and it has surrendered to the certification of compliance with ISO 14001 environmental standard. Centra has been also certified by IQNet, which includes 38 management systems certification bodies (as required by international standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001; industry-specific standards such as ISO / TS 16 949) from around the world with headquarters in Switzerland.
In view of increasing production, new technologies used in the Centra SA and sharpened quality requirements, the IT department needed tools for efficient management of emerging information technology issues within the company. The tools were supposed to help the IT department to respond to the needs of workers so that the difficulties arising from the failure of systems or equipment to be minimized and do not cause losses in production.
So far, the IT department has received notification of failures by telephone – the workers who have a problem call the IT staff, report them the details of the problem and determine time when the problem will be corrected. The absence of an employee who received the notification automatically extended durations of solving the problem. With the increasing automation of processes and having to meet the company quality requirements imposed by the certificates obtained, the notification and correction system ceased to take an exam, because it did not allow for good control and management of tasks and thus to assess the effectiveness of actions.
The biggest IT pain points were:
• difficult to assess the use of IT resources,
• insufficient control over the implementation of tasks,
• poor working time management and the difficulty in assessing the workload of workers.
Centra SA has decided to implement new software to automate and simplify the control of IT processes. Above all, it needed a tool that would allow on the one hand for easy and quick notification of problems to the IT department allowing it to follow the further course of these notifications, and on the other hand would allow for better working time management and control of tasks implementation. As the work of the IT team to service notification of employees of other departments was project-based, it was decided to implement Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) to improve this process.

The solution
The company looked for a cheap and easy to use solution that would meet its expectations and at the same time would have been quickly accepted by employees. The company has benefited from the Microsoft software so far, so it was decided to extend their existing software for project management tools from Microsoft. This allowed Centra SA to achieve economies of scale resulting from the use of a single platform, but also to gain high acceptance of workers, who has started working on the system quickly and without time-consuming training. Immediately after the implementation of EPM, it has integrated seamlessly with other elements of the Office system platform and has began functioning in Centra SA.

The solution includes:
• Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 for creating schedules, analysis, planning and resource management in the project;
• Microsoft Office Project Web Access that provides access to projects and project documentation stored on Project Server;
• Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 – a platform for project management and project portfolio management in a company that provides centralization and standardization of project information.
As part of the Microsoft Project Server 2003 there has been included the SharePoint technology. It has enabled the creation of web sites for team collaboration on documents, and has allowed for management, versioning and sharing of documents and information, as well as for tracking errors.
EPM has been designed for monitoring of the maintenance task implementation and SharePoint has been designed to record the problems reported by employees of all departments of the company.
The implementation began with the preparation of a helpdesk website that has replaced the phone calls as a convenient way for employees to report the problems and their IT needs. Each of the employees of the company has access to the website and at any time can log on and type in his or her problem. Next the information is sent to the IT administrator, who gives the appropriate notification statute and assigns the task to the IT team. The adoption of a clear and logical data structure has allowed each user to view the problems systematized according to preset criteria: the status, priorities and how advance is the implementation of the solution. Particular problems, after the development, are in the form of mailing lists, allowing you to trace the successive stages of the implemented solutions and IT staff attention. This also allows the notifier to join the discussions at each stage and to ask additional questions or to add or clarify information about the problem.
On the other hand, the information contained on the helpdesk website can be exported to a spreadsheet and analyzed freely. This is a mine of information for further processing, such as the selection of the most common problems in specific sectors and deciding what IT investments and training is necessary for employees to improve the quality of work.
Additionally, EPM has made it possible to further manage the information and resources. Views of reporting, as defined in the course of implementation, are available for persons with one click and all documents related to the problem (at fixed templates) are collected in one place. This allows you to very easily determine which problems have already been completed, which ones take place as planned and which ones, and for what reasons, are at risk of delay. With such data, the IT manager can modify the schedule of activities and reorganize his workers so that they meet established deadlines.
EPM allows you to store and analyze historical data – with the emergence of the problem once again, the IT manager may at any time follow step by step actions taken in previous cases and better assess the opportunities and needs in the current case. This makes planning more reliable and consistent.
The IT department can create a database of FAQ common problems, which will allow users, through a pattern of actions in this case, the self-removal of small failures, not requiring the intervention of a specialist.
Another important benefit for IT department associated with the EPM implementation is a possibility to mange the staff. The technology allows IT employees to adjust to the strict corporate goals, allocating them in accordance with the highest priority projects. On the other hand, the IT department manager has a tool that allows him to fairly accurately measure employee engagement and productivity.

Business Benefits
“Today, when IT is a kind of a backbone of enterprises it is important to look for tools that will help keep the spine in good condition. EPM has proven itself as a tool for this purpose” – says Adam Kosakowski, IT Manager. – “EPM has enabled us to solve the major problems that faced the department quickly and without major expenditure. It has also created new quality standards of management of IT problem notifications across the enterprise.

Simple management of notifications
By creating a set of views, adapted to the needs of the IT department, the review of notifications by the most important criteria is instant. These views include a full set of required indicators (type of problem, the status, the deviation from the schedule, the person responsible), which until then had been dispersed. This allows you to find out quickly what is the status of work and to take corrective steps fast, if necessary. Through the use of already possessed licenses of Microsoft, Centra SA has managed to both solve a specific business need and maintain a homogeneous computing environment.

Secure planning
Meeting all of the information in one place makes it possible to safely plan activities and tasks. It also lets you keep responding to emerging problems, estimate possible delays in the work, and modify the allocation of tasks to staff in order to meet the deadlines contained in the schedules.
Additionally, based on historical data stored in the EPM, the IT manager can better plan actions and use tested case scenarios.

Single database
As a result of the implementation of EPM it was possible to collect all the information into one easily accessible database, which is a mine of information for further processing. With the standardization of notification pattern and ability to export data between the helpdesk website and spreadsheets, data can be arbitrarily grouped and analyzed to yield information that until now were unreachable. This translates into better work planning, IT investment in the future, finding weaknesses in the IT structure of the company and consequently greater functionality across the enterprise.

Team work management
With EPM and project-based management of notification implementation, the IT manager has a clear picture of workload of each employee, can precisely measure their commitment and productivity. He can easily, if necessary, reorganize the division of labor and move workers to more priority tasks.

Quick solution to a specific problem
Centra SA needed a simple, effective solution to a specific IT problem very quickly. EPM has proven itself well in this space – provided appropriate management tools without having to make long-term analysis and concept development. Implementation was completed after two weeks.

Minimum training
Thanks to the already well-known technology, the IT staff required only a short training. The helpdesk website is available via a web browser and requires no training.

The situation

Casino Group in Poland
Casino Group has been present in Poland since 1996. Currently it employs over 8,500 employees. The company develops two shopping formats: Géant hypermarkets and Leader Price supermarkets. 18 hypermarkets of Géant are located in major Polish cities. Each of them has an average sales area of over 10,000 sq meters and is surrounded by a shopping center – an elegant arcade where dozens of stores offering branded merchandise and service outlets and restaurant are located. Casino Group’s net sales totaled over 3.6 billion in 2004.

The assortment
More than 90% of Géant’s offer is produced by Polish producers. Each Géant hypermarket has about 40,000 food, industrial, textile and electronics products. The offer also includes a wide selection of food and industrial assortments of Géant’s own brand – Leader Price, and also Tattoo – own brand of textiles.
Paying utmost importance to the quality of the sold products Géant has implemented the HACCP system. It ensures maintenance of adequate standards of hygiene and food safety.

Casino Group in the world
Casino Group employs over 200,000 employees in 15 countries on four continents. Over the past eight years, Casino Group has expanded its activities both in France, where its leadership is unquestioned, and in the world – opening 181 hypermarkets outside of its native country, including 16 consecutive ones in Poland.

Project management
The responsibility for project management is delegated to 5 project managers who work with twenty members of project teams. To implement projects the company uses the PRINCE2 methodology – knowledge of this methodology was one of the criteria when selecting suppliers.

Géant uses Windows XP as an operating system for personal computers in the company. The operating system is constantly updated via the Internet. – “The IT environment of Géant Poland is homogeneous – all computerized workstations are running under the control of Microsoft software. The use of Word and Excel is natural and extends the analytical capabilities of the system”- says Herve Riocreux, IT Director of Géant Poland.

Problems
Problems of managing a portfolio of projects began at the stage of initialization. Each project team member held the project documentation in his own way – in his own folders and in his own templates and formats. As there was no common templates used in the project documents it was difficult to analyze and compare information.
Keeping information in different formats and locations made it difficult to plan a new initiative, because the information was dispersed.
A project manager had data on his own projects but there was no common pool of resources. So if something has changed in a single project or there was a new project planned, the impact of the amended or new project on the other projects was not visible.
For those reasons it was difficult to communicate and share data, and it resulted in the need for additional work – tells Mariusz Leszczynski: “While planning a project it was necessary to ask all workers and project leaders about their availability”. Not seeing the effects of changes right away it was difficult to coordinate planning activities.

The solution

Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) has facilitated reporting for all project participants – team members, a project manager and a steering committee. Views of reporting, as defined in the course of implementation, are available for persons with one click and all project documents (as defined templates) are collected in one place.

One of the main requirements of the project was that it had to be “up & running” in 1 month.
Therefore, the key was to coordinate the project in such a way to achive this deadline. Finishing the project within 1 month was also possible due to obtaining a common vision of a solution fast, what has allowed quick transition to the phase of implementation and testing. As Robert Rosłon, Project Manager of Fild.NET, puts it: – “Experience of Fild.NET with the PRINCE2® methodology from previous projects, combined with the flexibility of the Microsoft EPM platform allowed us to design a solution that would significantly increase the ergonomics of work.”

The created Enterprise Project Management system is based on Windows 2003 Server and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. The system has custom Project Web Access views defined for executives of Géant Poland. These views are grouped by type of projects or project status – in accordance with the existing way of working in Géant Poland.
Each project, apart from the standard indicators of data calculated automatically, is also described using graphical indicators, divided into three groups depending on the level of deviations that occur in a project.

The structure of the documents in the project management system is based on the standards of PRINCE2 ® and adapted to project work according to this methodology.
Functional workspace of projects has been extended significantly in the new system. It has been adapted to the specific requirements of Géant Poland including supporting the work of the project team working in accordance with PRINCE2 ®.
In the last stage of work there has been created a user manual divided into sections for each role defined in the project management system. There were also conducted workshops for project managers, on which they got familiar with the functionality of the Enterprise Project Management solution.

Users as well as project managers have access to the system by a browser. For this reasons it is possible to work remotely with the system if an employee has access to the intranet.

Benefits

Géant Poland has realized how important factors are comfort and habits of users and compliance with standards.

“You can like or dislike Microsoft programs but Office has become such a strong standard that other solutions seem to be artificial and awkward. Users take advantage of Microsoft software proficiently and intuitively, even without having IT knowledge. Also, from our point of view – as IT professionals – it is a better solution for us, because it ensures that we maintain a homogeneous computing environment in the company “- says Marcin Krasowski.

Simple project portfolio management
By creating a set of views in accordance with the requirements of the management of the company, an overview of projects according to the most important criteria is available instantly. It is possible as the projects contain a set of required indicators (external and total costs, project type, project status, deviation from the schedule, the person responsible), which were previously scattered in separate reports. The grouping of data in the most watched formats allows you to find out quickly what is the status of work and to take corrective steps if necessary.
The use of EPM has made it easier for IT department to manage the IT infrastructure in the company. Through the use of Microsoft licenses it was possible to both solve a specific business need and maintain a homogeneous computing environment.

Simple reporting
The project management system saves at least 2 days per month of a project manager, who until now dedicated it to the consolidation of data and reducing it to a common denominator. Currently, when there is no need to enter data on implementation of working time (members of teams do it themselves), the project manager can focus on analyzing and planning of activities instead of fighting with technology and data conversion. Consequently, the expected effect of the new solution is to uncover new opportunities and increase efficiency in the projects.

Easy management of project documentation
The project documentation, especially when a formal method is used in an organization, is a very important element in ensuring high quality products of the projects. Having collected the used templates in one place in a form of Document Library, a project manager has access not only to the current version of each document but also knows which document and when should be used.

More efficient risk management
With the scale and scope of the projects in Géant Poland, appropriate risk management is a necessary component of the decision-making process. EPM mechanisms allow the company to find out quickly the status of the risks and take appropriate actions.

Secure planning
In the old “manual” solution there was a danger of missing important data or making a wrong decision because of a lack of data when planning new projects. With Microsoft EPM this risk is very limited as the system allows for reviewing all projects in one place and analyzing the impact of one project to another.

Minimum training
Thanks to the already well-known technology there was required only a short training course for project managers. For each of the roles (Project Manager, team member, director) there was prepared and conducted customized training. Start of work in the new environment was easy as both Project 2003 and the intranet environment of Project Web Access are very easy to adapt to the needs of each of the mentioned groups of users.

Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM)

Microsoft Project Server is a platform that supports project management processes and resources, and also provides the possibility of cooperation in the framework of the EPM solution.
Users connect to Project Server using Project Professional software or Project Web Access in order to save the data on Project Server, and to collect or collaborate on the data. To benefit from the opportunities offered by the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services ™ environment such as document management and project issue tracking and assessing their risk, Project Server 2003 must be installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. Windows SharePoint Services is a component of Windows Server 2003, which allows users to create Web sites designed to share information and work together on documents.