Leveraging Solvay Group Culture With a Third Generation Intranet

“Corporate culture is a powerful weapon. Changing it can be deadly, but it can be stretched. Knowing that Solvay Group feeds on knowledge to grow, its global knowledge feedstock should become muscle not fat!”

Michel Washer
Beginning of 2001, Luis Serrano took over from Michel Washer as head of e-Enterprise Services at Solvay Group. Washer and Serrano shared a vision. The vision was that of a consol idated next generation intranet that would open the windows to the vast amount of knowledge and experience within Solvay Group. By 2006. all knowledge workers of this strongly growing global €9.4 billion revenue chemical, plastics and pharmaceutical group would be able to enhance their knowledge and collaboration to the benefit of customers, shareholders, suppliers, and other stakeholders (see Exhibit 1 for the key financials). Personal computer penetration and intranet access amounted to about 20,000 of the 30,000 people in the company. Serrano, a seasoned business professional who had previously earned his stripes in various positions in the company including Human Resources and Marketing, felt that Solvay Group could reap significant rewards when evolving to a next generation of group intranet. It was now time to make the dream come true.

Taking Stock
Solvay Group, founded as Solvay & Compagnie by Ernest and his brother Alfred Solvay in 1863 in Belgium, was often referred to as “a company of engineers.” In the footsteps of Ernest Solvay, who patented the industrial production of sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash, in 1861, Solvay Group researched and developed many breakthrough technologies and products such as sodium carbonate derivatives, chlorine, plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), peroxygens, specialty polymers, and a focused range of selected therapeutic areas in pharmaceuticals.

Solvay Group had since grown into a global group present in 50 countries on every continent operating in three sectors: pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and plastics. Solvay Group was structured along three dimensions, being the regions, functions, and sectors, each led by a general manager (see Exhibit 2 for the organizational structure).

The corporate culture was firmly embodied in a consensus-driven decision making constellation of networks of people based on trust, in alignment with the group’s core values of ethical behavior, respect for people, customer care, empowerment, and teamwork. Serrano’s dream of a next generation corporate intranet would need to reinforce these values and dynamics. Given the importance of the project for Solvay Group, Serrano decided to keep every single Executive Committee member in the loop from the very start. (nói về văn hóa DN)

To take stock of the intranet initiatives that had been deployed at Solvay a project team was assembled. The team was composed of Serrano and two delegates from Solvay Group Corporate Communication (SG-CC) and Solvay Information Serv ices (SIS). It did not take the team very long to establish that Solvay currently had about 400 intranets scattered across its entities (i.e., Strategic Business Units (SBUs), Competence Centers (CCs), Business Support Centers (BSCs), production sites, and other group entities). This proliferation of intranets had roughly gone through two phases of evolution. The first generation of intranets consisted of static sites whereas the second generation ot intranets added more dynamics through the use of interactive elements such as forms. A third generation would augment previous initiatives in a consolidated structure offering advanced functionality for group-wide personalization and collaboration. (có 3 người điều hành dự án I3G)

The development cost for the bulk of these intranet sites varied between €5,000 and €80,000 per intranet site, depending on the sophistication of the functionality and the type and amount of content offered. However, these costs easily exceeded €150,000 for the most advanced sites, maintenance
costs not accounted for. (có 400 trang web internet cho các chi nhánh của Solvay, chi phí cho mổi trang web từ 5000 -> 80000 euro) In most of the cases no specific budget was earmarked for the latter. which made monitoring actual expenditure for the intranets extremely hard. In order to evaluate the money spent so far, the project team provided a ballpark estimate for a total development cost of about €8 million, with an added total maintenance cost amounting to some €4 million per year.

With the support of SG-CC, SIS, Knowledge Management (KM), HR, and a network of in-house intranet specialists, the project team also engaged in an extensive user needs assessment. User needs were identified and prioritized, taking into account desirability and economic relevance, by six ten-person validation teams and selected Business Unit managers. In parallel, information technologies and application support available on the market were closely examined. The user needs assessment ultimately revealed that the current intranet capabilities were highly valued by the different entities within solvay Group, but also that at the same time many of the entities were considering major site updates encompassing more advanced functionality and content. Many of the listed user requirements were driven by three socalled strategic investment objectives :

•Information access, that is, allow users to personally and easily locate the right information at the right time, regardless of where the information is stored; •Knowledge sharing. that is, enable users to exchange information and experiences in a fast and reliable mode; •Updating content, that is, assure users that the information they have at their fingertips is current.

Intranet Third Generation (I3G)
(mô tả dự án)
In September 2003, Serrano presented a note to the Executive Committee in which he argued for a Third Generation Intranet (I3G) investment project from what was learned in the project team exercise. The I3G project aimed at consolidating all existing yet fragmented intranet initiati ves at Solvay Group by establishing a newly architected Solvay Group intranet framework (see Exhibit 3 for As Is versus To Be architecture). The I3G project
encompassed (1) the design and implementation of the infrastructure for the newly architected intranet platform, (2) the roll-out of multiple pilots, and (3) the setup of a support organization. Designing the gateway structure between the Solvay Group intranet and some partner internet pages was also proposed as part of the project. The new intranet platform, dubbed SOLIA, would consist of shared technology components and services, and standard information technology functionality and applications on top of which more customized solutions could be built. The latter would then cater to specific needs of local users. For example, I3G proposed a common, global, shared intranet portal with user-profile- based parameterization capabilities as a standard gateway into the intranet for the entire Group.

At sign-on, a user would be authenticated, access rights would be verified, and, based on the user’s profile, personalized information and functionality would be served in the desired language. Users would then be offered the freedom to create and manage their own content in an easy manner. New and advanced search and content management functionality would support this. The portal would also facilitate collaboration and document management, as well as allow for remote access (see Exhibit 4). A general principle underlying I3G’s scope and impact on the Solvay organization was that of delegation. This principle specified that whereas all organizational entities remained autonomously responsible for their intranet content, and would be able to add/delete content as they saw fit, a standard information access and sharing structure and policy would be imposed centrally. Therefore, Serrano’s note to the Executive Committee asked for a mandate to design, and subsequently impose, an I3G policy that standardized intranet information access for the whole intranet user community.

This would imply that further investment in existing intranets would need to abide by this policy, and that requests for new intranet sites outside the framework set by I3G would be rejected. The note to the Executive Committee earmarked a budget of €5.5 million for I3G implementation, to be charged to the Solvay Group level and re-invoiced to the different sectors using the cost allocation key for general costs. This covered development and operational expenses for the project period. Recurring operating expenses including depreciation, hardware leasing, maintenance of licenses, and support were estimated at €12.5 per user per month, to be charged to the Solvay entities in the context of their subscription to computer services provided by SIS.

A hard and cold quantification of I3G project benefits was considered thorny. The document included a teaser cost calculation simulating how a five-minute gain per information search for every business manager would lead to a theoretical payback period of 2 years at most. Qualifying the major benefits of I3G for Solvay Group with reference to the user needs assessment was not hard.

The note to the Executive Committee elaborated textually and at some length on the following benefits associated with the project: •Reinforcing Solvay Group values, especially empowerment and teamwork:

•Supporting innovation;
•Ensuring in-house information security;
•Capitalizing to a maximum prior investments in existing intranets and Enterprise Resource Planning systems;
•Increasing employee productivity and efficiency ;
•Supporting new organizational formats and work methods (e.g. virtual teams, and teleconferencing);

•Improving information search and distribution:
•Reducing and controlling development and maintenance expenditures of existing intranets. The timeline for I3G project implementation was set to two and a half years, i.e. from January 2004 to June 2006 (see Exhibit 5 for the project timeline). In a first phase, I3 G’ s technical platform would be set up, the work standards would be defined, and the guidelines for intranet layout would be specified. During the remainder of the first nine months the I3G infrastructure would be further developed and tested by means of two pilots, one so-called business pilot and one so-called transversal pilot. The former would develop an I3G-based portal with integrated SBU-specific functionality for the Soda Ash SBU, in close cooperation with the Chemicals Sector, whereas the latter would develop a set of generic Intranet services for a group-wide audience covering a broad range of widely used functionalities, in particular personalization, information access, and advanced search. The rest of the timeline would be populated with two or three further pilots that would allow for increasing the robustness, and the reach and range of I3G intranet services. By the end of June 2006, the deliverables of I3G would be ready for group-wide roll-out to all Solvay entities. Also, by that time, the entities’ intranet managers would have been trained to support I3G-based intranets and an I3C support organization would have been established.

Serrano concluded his presentation to the Executive Committee with a formal request to (1) approve the I13G project and the associated expenses and timeline; and (2) include with the project approval a compliance mandate requiring all Solvay Group entities to espouse the I3G intranet architecture, standards and guidelines.

Part B — Steps forward: 2004-2006
(Thực hiện dự án)
“We emphasize that all Group entities respect the standards and guidelines issued for this project, and especially the integration of their intranet sites within the system. No exceptions allowed.” From the Executive Committee note approving the I3G project, October 2003. It was June 2006 and the I3G project was nearing completion. In the last 2.5 years over a hundred people had actively worked on the project, Jean-Louis Lieutenant, project leader of I3G. reviewed some of the team’s achievements. For one, the project was del ivered according to budget and within the allotted time frame. The potential for rationalizing the number of intranet sites had become apparent and could easily amount to 50%. A global technology support structure consisting of just four teams (one for each Sofia platform technology in Exhibit 4) spread across four continents under a single authority had substituted for a manifold of local support teams.

Lieutenant, who worked at a Solvay – British Petroleum Joint Venture before being appointed as project leader of I3G, reported to Serrano, who in turn, reported to a steering committee with members from SG-CC, SIS, and Corporate Planning. Serrano and Lieutenant had structured the project team along two deliverables: ( 1) deployment of the infrastructure components and development of design, standards and guidelines, and (2) successful roll-out of the business and transversal pilots (see Exhibit 5). A Solia Change Control Board (SCCB) was created in 2004 as a validation body for the standards and guidelines issued by the I3G project team over the course of the project timeline. It gathered representatives from the sectors, regions, and functions, as well as from SIS and KM, and soon became the vehicle for ensuring that every intranet site roll-out complied with these standards and guidelines.

Lieutenant, who presided the SCCB meetings, had fond memories of the SCCB meeting of May 17, 2005, during which a double go-life was celebrated. Both the first business pilot to the Soda Ash community, and the first horizontal pilot to the entire Solvay Group community were successful ly launched on April 18 and on May 9, 2005, respectively, at expected cost. No major technical roadblocks had surfaced, and many users were eager to integrate new applications such as travel expenses, interactive views to Enterprise Resource Planning systems — mostly HR, and search engine indexation of former shared drives.

Both pilots created a lot of buzz. An e-mai l invitation was sent by the head of the Soda Ash SBU to 2,700 users worldwide, while 16,000 Solvay employees across the world received an internal e-mai l ftom the CEO soliciting them to view a three-minute flash trailer with voice.

To spur adoption, local intranet managers were offered four e-learning modules of approximately 1 5 minutes each (in seven languages) on the basics of the Sofia technology components. For advanced topics, in class training sessions were organized. Also, an e-newsletter was launched in April 2004 that was primarily targeted to I3G contributors, team members and future users. The newsletter provided regular updates on work in progress to all project sponsors including the Executive Committee members, the SCCB members, and the top managers of the Group.

During 2005, a new job description came into being, that of Sofia Coach. These specialists assumed the roles of internal consultant, analyzing customers’ needs, project leader, taking responsibility for migration projects, and ambassador of the Sofia solutions and recommendations, promoting the Sofia platform locally. As the population of Sofia Coaches grew, they had formed themselves into an international team to fine-tune their knowledge and validate their work practices. The latter was consolidated into a repository set of procedures and a single methodology assembled from what was done and learned throughout the project. The Sofia Coaches network would progressively “merge” with the Sofia Roll-out team. Baton-passing sessions were organized to transfer the learnings.

While four fully operational Sofia intranet sites (i.e., portal. CMS and TeamS ite) were established by June 2006, as well as 16 portals, 11 CMS sites, and 70 TeamSites, the ambition was for more than 140 roll-out projects in the next two years. The cost of a Solia migration project was estimated at C I 5,000, excluding the time and effort for cleaning, restructuring, and rewriting content. Solvay Group entities needed to autonomous l y run their own migration projects at their own pace. While the entities would maintain authority over the migration of their intranets, they would need to comply with the specific governance process (aiticulated as a set of rules and guidelines) monitored by the SCCB. An important accelerator would be the doubling of the costs the entities would incur during transition as they would be charged for both maintaining their former intranets and for using the Sofia platform.

At the end of the day, the I3 G project team firmly believed that knowledge work within Solvay Group was poised to benefit from global, multi-lingual information access and real-time communication capabilities, integrated know legde storage and flow, and improved coherency of documentation. Once the bulk of the sectors, functions and regions would populate and make the most of the Sofia platform, Solvay Group corporate culture would be leveraged by this “new way of working together.”