The advantages of Open Source systems go beyond simple cost savings. Content management by its very nature requires a significant level of customisation and integration to meet business requirements. By not prohibiting the inspection and modification of the source code, Open Source enables a level of flexibility not available with proprietary systems.
This talk will present a case study of the process one corporation, Belron®, went through in the development of a corporate Intranet based on Plone. Belron® is the world's largest vehicle glass repair and replacement company, owning some of the best known brands in the industry including Carglass®, Autoglass®, O'Brien® and Safelite®. Belron® employs more than 19, 500 people working in 28 countries worldwide.
In this talk you will see how the flexibility of Open Source allowed an initial modest Intranet to adapt and grow over time to an organisation's evolving requirements, and the development of multiple sub-sites, specific business processes and multilingual support. You will also see how Open Source's licensing model allows un-fettered growth and deployment of the Intranet to multiple countries.
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The Flexibility of Open Source: A Case Study of a large Corporate Intranet
1. The Flexibility of Open Source
Matt Hamilton
A Case Study of a large
Corporate Intranet
Matt Hamilton
Technical Director, Netsight
2. Agenda
- Introduction
➡ Who is Belron®?
➡ Project History
- Initial Requirements
- What is Plone?
➡ The Flexibility of Open Source
- Development Timeline
➡ Initial Intranet Launch
➡ Subsequent development and evolution
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3. Introduction - Adaptability
“
The Intranet is intuitive, easy to use and friendly.
It's key strength is it's adaptability.
- Naz Latif, Communications Executive, Belron®
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5. Who is Belron®?
You probably know them as:
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6. Who is Belron®?
But they are also known as:
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7. Who is Belron®?
Belron® is the world's largest vehicle glass
repair and replacement company, generating
revenues of €2,159.2 million in 2008.
Every three seconds a Belron® business
replaces a piece of glass or repairs a
windscreen. They have over 1,800 service
centres and 8,000 mobile repair vehicles
serving over nine million motorists worldwide.
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8. History
In 2006 Belron® engaged Netsight with the
objective of procuring a new global
management-level Intranet to facilitate
the communication of information
throughout their worldwide operations.
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9. Goal
Their primary goal was to provide a
secure, efficient and user friendly
mechanism for sharing information
within their organisation’s leadership.
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10. Initial Requirements
- Needed a way to better communicate
with internal staff
- Had an existing Sharepoint system,
acting as a document store, but they
needed to actually communicate
- Very strong requirement to adhere to
brand guidelines
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11. What is Plone?
Plone is among the top 2% of all
open source projects worldwide, with
200 core developers and more than
300 solution providers in 57
countries.
The project has been actively
developed since 2001, is available in
more than 40 languages, and has the
best security track record of any
major CMS.
It is owned by the Plone Foundation,
a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation,
and is available for all major
operating systems
Plone Conference 2009, Budapest
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12. Flexibility of Open Source
The inherent flexibility in Open Source
software, brought about by having
access to the source code, means that
the system can change as you need it
to – you are not restricted to a fixed
feature set.
With Open Source software you can
customise the system to fit your
requirements, not the other way around.
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13. Why They Chose Plone
- Lower initial costs
- Greater flexibility than comparable proprietary
alternatives.
- Ability to expand and grow the system as
requirements were identified and business
processes evolve
- Stay in full control of their system, investing in the
areas proving to be most valuable.
- Experiment with different ideas for approaching
the problem without incurring licence fees.
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15. Initial Intranet Launch
- Launched in Jun 2007
➡ Initial user base of 600 management level
employees worldwide
- News, events, documents, contact
directories
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35. The Future
- Carglass®Germany Intranet currently in
development
- Carglass®Spain Intranet currently in
development
- Belron.net ‘Research Wall’
- ‘Best of Belron® 2010’ microsite
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36. Result
“
Belron® have utilised Plone to bring business use
cases & processes to life via the internet worldwide.
The initial objective of efficient communication and
sharing of information globally has been achieved
and is further improving every day.
- Naz Latif, Communications Executive, Belron®
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37. Conclusion
An Open Source CMS allows you to tailor your
Intranet to your specific business needs and
processes
➡ even if you don’t know all your requirements yet!
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