My presentation at J. Boye Aarhus 2010 titled: Re-ignite your intranet - Why having no budget is not all bad

1. Re-ignite your intranet
Why having no budget is not all bad
J Boye 2010 – Aarhus – 03-11-2010

2. About me

3. Arla Foods in brief
- The world’s largest supplier of organic dairy products
- The 8th largest dairy company in the world
- Owned by around 7,600 Danish and Swedish farmers
-Turnover in 2009: DKK 46bn (~EUR 6.2bn)
- Employees in total (2009): 16,231
- With intranet access: ~9,000.
Employees by country
Denmark
Sweden
UK
Finland
Poland
Holland
Other

4. Arla Foods’ World

5. A few words about the Arla Foods
Intranet – ”My Workplace”

6. MWP - Overview
• Role portals
(eg. ”Mgr. Self Service”)
• Department
sites
• Collaboration
• Workflows/SAP
integration
(eg. invoice handling)
• News
• Search
• 3 languages

7. My Workplace – Status 2009
• MWP launched in 2004.
• Well known intranet
brand.
• Many plans for
development – but only
plans.
• Who ”owns” the intranet?
• Owner = Comms dept.
• Budgets = IT dept.
• Global/Local imbalance

8. Credit Crunch time!
16-04-09: Arla announces
plans to save 1bn DKK
• Goodbye to 250+
colleagues
• No travelling
• All ”non-strategic” projects
are closed down –
including IT projects.
• No external consultants!
Edward Munch ”Skriket” (1893) Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg

9. While we wait for the crisis to recede
We need to improve but…
• We have no money.
• Ressources are scarce in more
ways than one.
• Tech competences have been
outsourced which makes it
even harder to get things
moving.
Now what? Can we get something for ’free’?
Yes! Of course you can!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emrank/2435273839/

10. Strategy, Vision, Mission
In 2008 Arla launched
1. Company ’Strategy 2015’
2. ”Closer to Nature” branding
3. Values: Lead, Sense, Create
An Intranet strategy project was
initiated in Jan 2009 with external
partners before the crisis hit Arla
but was shut down due to savings.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/klashback/126950259/

11. My Workplace Vision
Building on the work carried out in the intranet strategy
project we now have an intranet vision:
The ONE place that brings Arla closer to You by
nurturing efficient communication, knowledge
sharing, and collaboration
…and three mission statements:
Enable communication Facilitate knowledge Improve internal
of corporate messages sharing & collaboration efficiency by providing
both globally and locally across geographical as relevant self service
to support the ONE well as organisational solutions.
company agenda. borders.

12. Intranet Governance
• Intranet ownership transferred
from HR to Communications.
• Existing steering Committee
’dusted off’ and put in charge of the
intranet strategy – at least on paper
• Make ’governance’ operational by
increasing coordination between IT
and the Arla business.
• The challenge is to keep
momentum when nothing is
actually moving.

13. My Workplace Governance
• MWP Governance Board (Comms / HR / IT)
• Meeting Frequency: 2-4 times/year
• Long term planning and ensuring that the MWP strategy is aligned with both Arla’s
Strategy overall strategy and the IT strategy.
• MWP Operational Planning (MWP Team)
• Meeting Frequency: 6-12 times/year
Tactical • Planning and prioritizing of tasks and projects approved by the Governance Board.
Operations
• MWP Coordination (Arla/Suppliers)
• Meeting Frequency: Bi-weekly
Day to Day • Practical day-to-day coordination and status on the ongoing work.
30 May 2012 13

14. User satisfaction survey + benchmark
• No structured exploration has
been done previously.
• No hard ”evidence” that things
need to change – only rumours.
We need facts!
• State of the intranet: How are
we doing compared to others?
• Establishing a baseline for future
reference.
• 800 out of 3000 responded.

15. Intranet User Satisfaction
Three factor model
The short version:
You must succeed with Primary
factors before you can succeed
with the secondary, etc.
If you try to pass one of the
barriers WITHOUT meeting user’s
demands, the satisfaction will not
improve
How does this relate to Arla?
Survey show that speed & stability
are extremely poor. Accuracy and
News are OK, but the overall
rating still remains low.
The long version: http://bit.ly/bGjOLs

16. My Workplace Survey
• Results show that the average
How useful is My Workplace?
satisfaction is 60% which is low.
• However, the intranet is
considered both useful and
important!
• Major gaps identified (quite a
How important is My Workplace?
few confirmed rumours).
• Served as a serious eye-opener
for several in the organisation.
• Survey is now annual!

17. What we learned…
• A forced ’pause’ is a great opportunity for re-focusing and
getting your priorities straight and focus on the right things.
• Look at your to-do list – where’s the free stuff? In Arla’s case
1. Strategy, Vision, Mission review
2. Governance review
3. User Survey(s)
• …but just don’t fall into the self-pity trap!
Basically, It’s all about creating a burning platform.
The big challenge is that when everything has come
to a halt, everybody is trying to do so – you just
have to build the platform with the most fire!

18. Thank you!
Martin Risgaard Rasmussen
mrira@arlafoods.com
@risgaard