Microsoft India - Mahindra Group Case Study
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Mahindra & Mahindra Limited implemented Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to enhance information management and collaboration across its various sectors. The newly developed intranet portal, Mahindra Connect, facilitates secure access to information and documents, improving workflow and content management, while supporting multiple teams and communities within the organization. By integrating advanced search capabilities and role-based access, the portal allows employees to efficiently share knowledge and access resources, significantly enhancing productivity.
Microsoft India - Mahindra Group Case Study
- 1. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Customer Solution Case Study Top Industrial House Increases Collaboration Among Employees with New System Overview “We chose Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server as an Country or region: India Industry: Manufacturing integrated intranet platform - based on its capabilities to enable information and knowledge management Customer Profile Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is the through user-friendly interface.” flagship company of U.S.$ 6 billion Arvind Tawde, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited Mahindra Group which has a significant Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is a U.S.$6 billion presence in key sectors of the Indian economy. A consistently high performer, conglomerate that has a strong presence in virtually every sector M&M is one of the most respected it's present in, across the globe. The Mahindra Group is a leader in companies in the country. diverse businesses such as automobiles, engines, telecom, leisure Business Situation hospitality, rural finance and a host of other businesses. It's a M&M needed effective tools for improving information management and knowledge journey that began with making general purpose utility vehicles in sharing across the company. 1945 and has been driven by its motivation to excel ever since. Solution The intranet portal - Mahindra Connect was The company wanted to provide its employees with simple tools to developed using Microsoft Office SharePoint Platform. ensure information sharing and fast access to key information. An intranet portal - Mahindra Connect has been developed using Benefits Integrated platform Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2003 – later migrated to Improved collaboration SharePoint® Server 2007. The solution supports collaboration, Improved access to information and knowledge workflow processes, and document control. Streamlined content management
- 2. Situation Mahindra Europe Srl. based in Italy, Mahindra The US $6 billion Mahindra Group is among USA Inc. and Mahindra South Africa. the top 10 industrial houses in India. Mahindra & Mahindra is the only Indian M&M has entered into partnerships with company among the top tractor brands in the international companies like Renault SA, world. Mahindra’s Farm Equipment Sector France, and International Truck and Engine has recently won the Japan Quality Medal, Corporation, USA. Forbes has ranked the the only tractor company worldwide to be Mahindra Group in its Top 200 list of the bestowed this honour. It also holds the World’s Most Reputable Companies and in distinction of being the only tractor company the Top 10 list of Most Reputable Indian worldwide to win the Deming Prize. Mahindra companies. Mahindra has recently been is the market leader in multi-utility vehicles in honoured with the Bombay Chamber Good India. It made a milestone entry into the Corporate Citizen Award for 2006-07. “We wanted to make it passenger car segment with the Logan. easier for our employees IT Challenges The Group has a leading presence in key M&M IT believes in early technology adoption to find and access sectors of the Indian economy, including the for business benefits. SAP and Microsoft are information with fewer financial services, trade and logistics, the two major technology platforms used in automotive components, information M&M. clicks, while enhancing technology, and infrastructure development. security and M&M intranet, Mahindra Connect, has been With over 62 years of manufacturing functional from 1997. Initially static Web performance.” experience, the Mahindra Group has built a pages (on html/ASP platform) were catering Krishna Nabar, Senior GM, Corporate IT, strong base in technology, engineering, to information requirement of M&M users. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. marketing and distribution which are key to Information updation requirements were its evolution as a customer-centric routed through a central agency – “INTRANET organization. The Group employs over 50,000 SUPPORT”. There was a time lag between people and has several state-of-the-art users sending latest updates to INTRANET facilities in India and overseas. SUPPORT and actual upadation on the site. The search capabilities were very limited. The Mahindra Group has ambitious global Separate applications were created for aspirations and has a presence on five knowledge management related continents. Mahindra products are today requirements. available on every continent except Antarctica. M&M has one tractor The company wanted a collaboration manufacturing plant in China, three assembly solution, which will provide authorized users plants in the United States and one at with easy, secure, and quick access to Brisbane, Australia. It has made strategic documents and rights to update. Other acquisitions across the globe including required features include - organizing the Stokes Forgings (UK), Jeco Holding AG information into logical communities, (Germany) and Schoneweiss & Co GmbH workflow capability and document versioning. (Germany). Its global subsidiaries include
- 3. As M&M’s businesses are growing rapidly and productivity tools. Microsoft Office spreading across various geographic SharePoint® Server met both these locations, domestic and abroad, Mahindra requirements.” Connect is now available to more number of users across the globe. In this situation, all M&M intranet - Mahindra Connect was earlier updation through a central agency was not migrated from html/ASP platform to Microsoft practical. As the information and data volume Office SharePoint® Server 2003 in the year increased, the need for a proper Search 2006 and later migrated to Microsoft Office functionality also became prominent. SharePoint Server® 2007 in the year 2007. It is the common interface for sharing “We wanted to make it easier for our information/knowledge across M&M. employees to find and access information Mahindra Connect reaches to each and every with fewer clicks, while enhancing security employee, and supports different teams and and performance. Our focus was on groups within the organization. decentralizing information and knowledge management process,” says Krishna Nabar, Building the Intranet Senior GM, Corporate IT, M&M. “In addition, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007 is we wanted to build functional communities an integrated suite of capabilities that can across organization – supporting our help improve organizational effectiveness by Knowledge Management movement. providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and Solution facilitating information-sharing across The primary focus was to make its employees boundaries for better business insight. Office “Mahindra Connect is more productive by providing them access to tools, information, and people contacts faster SharePoint Server® 2007 supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications single, central place for and easier. across an enterprise within one integrated sharing organization- M&M surveyed various portal solutions platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. Additionally, this wide happenings, available in the market and after careful collaboration and content management information and evaluation decided that Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2003 would support the server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they knowledge – aptly company’s stated business needs. need for server administration, application enabled by SharePoint “We chose Microsoft Office SharePoint® extensibility, and interoperability. platform.” Server as an integrated intranet platform - Mahindra Connect has main sections such as based on its capabilities to enable structured What’s New, Organizational announcements, Mandar Vartak, DGM, Corporate IT, M&M information and knowledge management People corner (Fun & Frolic, Helpline, through user-friendly interface,” says Arvind Reading Room, Birthday updates), Mahindra Tawde, Senior VP and CIO, M&M. “The Information Services, Policies and Manuals, platform needs to have future technology Fact file, Media Room etc. Users can directly roadmap and at the same time it should contribute in people-centric sessions like seamlessly integrate with our existing office helpline, reading room. The sections like
- 4. Polices and Manuals, Fact file are informative “Mahindra Connect is a single, central place and used as central information resource. for sharing organization-wide happenings, Information owners are identified for each information and knowledge – aptly enabled section and they are given appropriate by SharePoint platform,” says Mandar Vartak, updation rights. DGM, Corporate IT, M&M. “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007 has provided rich Many functions and departments in the support for various kinds of communication organization maintain their own sub-sites and collaboration needs across the under Mahindra Connect. These sites are enterprise, within departments and among used to share functional information/updates teams.” with M&M users. Many sites are also used as a platform for close interaction within the The company has focused on exploring group. This has been facilitated by standard product features for meeting user appropriate role-based access. These sites requirements. Third-party web-parts are also are owned by the functional owners. Project used in few cases. Some design related sites are created for project teams – covering customizations are used for enhancing user project-specific information and experience. Other customizations are kept at documentation. Project sites are owned by minimum level. project team members. Mahindra Group Intranet will be the common Knowledge communities are formed in window for all information and knowledge different functional areas such as R&D, related to Mahindra Group. All Mahindra Quality, Manufacturing, and IT. Under the Group employees will access Group Intranet umbrella of Mahindra Connect, Knowledge through MahindraWorldNet and Internet. The Web has been developed to propagate common content will be accessible by all knowledge management movement. whereas role-based access will be provided to Knowledge Web hosts various repositories document libraries/knowledge repositories. covering various functions, and projects. The Search scope will cover all Various knowledge communities are information/knowledge repositories, effectively collaborating through features databases across Mahindra Group such as Search, and Discussion Forum. Companies. This platform is also used for Internal Blogging. Other Web 2.0 features are also Benefits being explored. Through the implementation of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007, M&M has Developed on Microsoft SharePoint platform, experienced several improvements. Mahindra Connect effectively uses features such as search, role-based access, content Integrated Platform management, team-sites, discussion forums, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007 blogs etc. serves for information and knowledge management requirements at M&M with its standard product features. The need for
- 5. developing and maintaining variety of separate applications has been minimized to a great extent. Improved Collaboration Mahindra Connect is used to share knowledge, find information, and collaborate more easily and more securely within and across Business Units and Locations. The company is expecting to get more benefits through further exploring Web 2.0 functionalities. Improved Access to Information and Knowledge All information and knowledge is now available at one place and can be searched through the intranet platform. Enterprise Search feature facilitates searching people and business data along with documents and Web pages to provide more comprehensive results. Structured and Effective Content Management Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007 has helped M&M IT users to manage their own content on intranet sites, sub-sites, project-sites. Content access is managed at document/folder/site level based on user requirements. Multiple versions of the documents are maintained, wherever required. Integration with familiar Microsoft Office client applications, e-mail, and Web browsers has simplified the user experience. Enriched user experience has been a major motivating factor behind wide acceptance of the platform.
- 6. For More Information Microsoft Office System For more information about Microsoft The Microsoft Office System is the business products and services, call the Microsoft world’s chosen environment for information Sales Information Center at (800) work, providing the programs, servers, and 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft services that help you succeed by Canada Information Centre at (877) transforming information into impact. 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text For more information about the Microsoft telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) Office System, go to: 892-5234 in the United States or (905) www.microsoft.com/office 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com For more information about Mahindra & Mahindra Limited products and services, call +91 22 2493 1441 or visit the Web site at: www.mahindra.com Software and Services Hardware Products Two front-end servers – with Network Load − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Balancing 2007 One indexing server – facilitating Search Two database servers with SAS storage © 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published January 2008