One of the UK’s biggest affordable housing providers has made a six-figure investment in technology to help shape the future of the business.
Home Group has appointed Technology Services Group (TSG) to a three-year contract to implement a new corporate intranet and extranet to improve communication and collaboration across the organisation.
With more than 3,300 employees operating between Devon and Dundee, the aim is to achieve consistency across the Home Group and put in place a future-proof solution to accommodate a variety of information and data requirements.
TSG, a national business with headquarters in Gosforth, will use Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Enterprise as a base for the project, which will enable Home to make savings across the business.
David Redpath, Home Group information systems director, said: "Over the years we’ve adopted a large number of stand-alone applications to address numerous different tasks and requirements.
"The contract with TSG represents a conscious and strategic decision to consolidate both our application footprint across the business and our suppliers into a small number of strategic partners that will help to change and shape the business moving forward."
TSG undertook research with Home Group stakeholders before developing a full solution design based on Microsoft SharePoint.
TSG SharePoint specialist Tony Hughes said: "We’ve designed a solution that has no compiled code, which offers major advantages by making ongoing support much more straightforward, reducing the cost of ownership and minimising risk to Home Group.
"The versatility of Microsoft SharePoint allows us to consolidate the variety of unique applications in use throughout the organisation to deliver an integrated and efficient solution. It also addresses both high availability and security which are major considerations."
David said he was confident the appointment of TSG would yield excellent results.
"It was clear that TSG have the knowledge and experience needed to address such a complex and broad-ranging project. We were impressed with both the number and variety of SharePoint projects they have completed successfully," he said.
"We’re certainly keen to apply best practice and benefit from the learning they’ve gained from working with business of all types and sectors."
Future phases of the project will see the rollout of SharePoint applications within Home Group to include document and records management, business forms, workflow and knowledge management.
