The Situation
Kiwi businesses right across the spectrum – from start-up companies to leading exporters – tap into the rich vein of market knowledge, experienced people and export smarts within New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE). As the government's national economic development agency, NZTE aims to improve the international competitiveness and sustained profitability of New Zealand business by providing access to people, knowledge and opportunities. For New Zealand businesses operating internationally, one of the most accessible vehicles for information is NZTE's corporate website: www.nzte.govt.nz.
Yet this vast umbrella of resources and knowledge was missing the mark. Several websites needed to be consolidated into one to allow NZTE to interact with businesses on the most customer-centric footing. The websites were built on ageing home-grown technology and the costs of maintaining them were mounting. NZTE formed a strategy to consolidate to one website for a New Zealand business audience, to be followed with a dedicated website to promote New Zealand internationally. A strong technology foundation was needed and Microsoft SharePoint Server was selected as a platform for the future.
The Pain
According to Mike Gilbert, Applications Architect for NZTE, they were looking for a complete technology footprint that would allow them to leverage and deliver value across the organisation.
“Our reason for selecting SharePoint was as much about choosing a whole package beyond anything else. Other platforms might have done the job well from a CMS viewpoint, but SharePoint stands out as a single enterprise-wide solution that delivers on so many levels be it internet, intranet, shared information or business intelligence applications.”
It was also one of the first SharePoint public-facing internet sites to be developed in the country, which meant that Intergen and NZTE were breaking new ground as the project progressed. Intergen was also awarded Business Productivity Enterprise Content Management Partner of the Year in the 2009 Microsoft NZ Partner Awards based on the NZTE website. Supported by a robust and extendable SharePoint platform, the new website has bought several strands of NZTE's business offerings together, reflecting the diversity and complexity of the various business streams underpinning it and the power of the technology foundation.
This wasn't a decision about which CMS; it was a decision about a total platform for the future. NZTE saw their investment as one that strategically asked, ‘What platform will give us the greatest mileage for the future.’ Not, ‘Which CMS system will do the job for us today?’
Project Sponsor Julian Moore says: “The new site is all about the users about the market information, products and services that our clients and the needs of other New Zealand businesses. The SharePoint platform enables us to do this today, and gives us tremendous capability to build on this in the future.”
The Gain
Experts in the international business arena, NZTE is now supported with a solid enterprise-wide SharePoint solution through a platform that has the potential to explore and support a host of business initiatives in years to come.