Case Study: Capgemini

Collaborating Across Corporate Boundaries

Capgemini, SAP, and HP needed a better way to collaborate on business case for SAP customers in the United Kingdom to upgrade their ERP systems. PBworks gave them a much more efficient platform for working together, and with their joint clients, reducing emails by 90%.

Drowning In Email

Richard Fahey of Capgemini was drowning in email. Capgemini, SAP, and HP were working together to convince SAP customers in the United Kingdom to upgrade from SAP R/3 to SAP ECC 6. This was a strategic project; without the upgrade, SAP customers wouldn't be able to use new technologies like Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) or Web services. Step one: Create a joint marketing brochure that all three IT giants could agree on.

Coordinating Efforts Between Capgemini, SAP, and HP

"All three companies have to work together," Fahey explained. "SAP provides the software. HP provides the infrastructure and servers. And we've got consultants onshore and offshore that help with the technical upgrade. We work with clients to identify the value proposition, and how they can use the latest technology to get real business benefits."

"We needed people from all three different companies to collaborate on producing the brochure," said Fahey. "So we decided to create an external wiki that people from all three companies could use."

PBworks Fits the Bill

Fahey had a very specific set of needs. First, he needed one central place where everyone could log in and view all the latest documents. Second, while the majority of the wiki needed to be available to all three companies, he needed to reserve some areas solely for Capgemini information and personnel.

Fahey had already used PBworks before, when he attended a Barcamp conference, so he knew the technology. He also knew that PBworks page- and folder-level access controls were perfect for meeting his security needs. He quickly set up a PBworks workspace and invited members of all 3 companies to join. Once they joined he quickly began seeing results.

Capgemini Cuts Email 90%

"In the past, we would have used email for everything," said Fahey. "There would have been a huge stream of emails with multi-megabyte attachments, with up to 10-20 people CC:d on each message to keep them informed. PBworks streamlined everything and made our work far more efficient."

"Using PBworks cut down our email by 90%," noted Fahey. "Everyone had the latest version of each document, knew what changes were made when and by whom. Everyone received updates on changes which kept them fully informed of the project status. It's a much more efficient, secure and transparent way of working."

Expanding to Customer Collaboration

As his team worked with PBworks, they found more and more uses for it. "When we had meetings, we put the agenda and meeting notes on the wiki," Fahey said. "We also set up a contacts page for all those working on the project, with roles, phone numbers, email, and other information. We even recorded events in the shared calendar."

Capgemini plans to continue expanding the role of PBworks in the future. Fahey sees a major role in expanding collaboration between the three firms to include their mutual clients. "What we'd like to do now is make the wiki open to our clients."

"We found that one of the reasons customers haven't upgraded already is that they find it difficult to put together the business case," said Fahey. "We need to convince CIOs of the business benefits an SAP upgrade can provide. Outlining these benefits requires collaboration from all parties, in order to understand the specific needs of each business. We plan to collaboratively write the business case for an upgrade with clients and partners inside the wiki. The wiki platform offers a much faster, transparent and more social way of interacting. Such a collaborative way of working drives productivity and efficiencies for us, our clients and partners."