How to grow the Intranet through delivering business value

LJ Hooker Case Study with WebVineCASE STUDYLJ HOOKER

How to succeed with SharePoint through delivering business value

• Operating since 1928 

• 7,000 staff in 650 offices across Australasia

• Sold over $15 billion in real estate in the last

financial year

• Manages $60 billion of property  

• LJ Hooker is the only real estate franchise to offer its

own brand of home loan finance.

About LJ Hooker

• LJH invested in SharePoint 2010

• They hired a SharePoint developer

• He built an extranet, an intranet & some custom

applications

• However, there was very little take-up

• Staff were disillusioned with SharePoint

• LJH then called WebVine

How SharePoint began..

• Assessed the situation and made recommendations

• Created a high-level intranet strategy

• Solved major problems with the extranet (it was very

slow for starters)

• Redesigned the intranet

WebVine jumped in

and:

The Redesigned

Intranet

Typically SharePoint has

served its purpose in most

organisations right about

now.

But WebVine and LJ Hooker

had different ideas...

What next?

• Enable staff to work more

quickly, efficiently, and

productively than ever

before

• Reduce the daily grind

tasks

We decided to:

• Reduce the volume of emails that need to be

sent

• Automate tasks where possible

• Start with 1

problem

• 10 days maximum

effort

• Get the win

• Move to the next

one

We wanted quick wins

• Team managed 180+ Brokers across Australia

• They had a folder for every broker in the share drive

• They had lots of excel documents – compliance

register, reports etc across all brokers

• No system for recording what communication

happened with the LJH broker network

• Majority of Processes were manual

• It was slow, tedious, repetitive work

Win 1: Home Loans Team

Now they just search for a broker

Everything about the

broker appears

Personal Details data is from another

database

Quickly add a comment so the

team is kept informed

Emails, attachments,

files auto-appear here

Easily generate numerous reports as

needed

“All of our broker specific information was captured throughout numerous spreadsheets which was both time consuming to manage

and involved a lot of double data entry.

SharePoint now enables us to capture all this in one place which is a much more efficient and secure process. In short – it rocks!”

Michael Smith, Business & Compliance Manager

Win 1: What did they think?

• 30 + team members in IT

• Geographic spread across AUS & NZ

• Wealth of knowledge across the team not

documented

• If someone left.... they took their knowledge with

them

Win 2: IT Knowledge Base

With just 2 days effort we ran a workshop and

created a tailored knowledge base

Tag an article so it

can be easily

found later

Once approved,

posts can be Searched or

accessed directly eg ‘Microsoft Outlook’

posts

• There was no directory for Vendors or Partners

• People called the contacts they knew, even if it was

to a non-preferred vendor

• LJ Hooker were unable to attract new partners

• The Corporate Partners Team were feeling lost

Win 3: Vendors and Partner

Program

Partners Program:Quick search partners

Now people search for a vendor or

partner here

Having clicked on ‘A’, just click the vendor

Contacts are only

displayed to people with permissions to see them

Didn’t like the vendor? Leave a

comment for others to see

Offers are displayed

from Partners

Offers display on

the Intranet

And on the extranet to 7000 Franchise Staff

10 new partners signed up in the first month

Just 6 days to build this tool

“The new LJ Hooker Partnership Register has allowed us to reignite a Partnership Portal that was lying dormant.

This has allowed us to promote the offering which has resulted in more Partners coming on board. It has also enhanced our relationships with

these partners, making them more dynamic and closer.”

Rod Fitzgerald, Corporate Partnerships and Events Specialist

The result

• The team run a course for new staff each month

• Targets are set for each staff member eg 3 sales a

week

• The staff emailed in their results every week for 12

weeks

• The team entered results in spreadsheets and created

reports

• This all took 2.5 days a week!

And now.....

Win 4: Training Courses

Now this attendee is about to enter their figures for week 12

They have entered figures for all

previous weeks

How easy is that?

Performance Tracking:Visualise your performance

And look what is

produced

Just 9 days to deliver this tool including consulting time.

The Training Team are now freed up to create Training

Videos and more.

“The new SharePoint training module is increasing efficiency, engaging our training attendees and making reporting easy.

With a high volume of participants we have also reduced the time spent on managing the course as well as reducing errors caused by manual

processes”

Ayesha Paul, Network Sales, Awards & Recognition

The result

• Original process: Sending a 30-day word doc to the

potential franchise owner to complete– not very

inviting!

• Several people were involved in the process meaning

• People dropped the ball in the process and customers went

elsewhere.

• Confusion as to what the status was for each applicant

• The board and CEO were frustrated with lack of visibility of the

pipeline

Win 5: Signing up Franchises

Franchise Renewal:The renewal process

We worked through the process of

what happens

Now this is how it’s

kicked off.

On submit the appropriate person is notified by email and then they enter their

information next

What the Board and

CEO rely on now

Franchise applications in process – determining

revenue

• Absolute clarity over the number of applications in process

• If anyone is holding up an application, it is easily spotted

• Renewals and new applications are processed easily

• Just 14 days to deliver this feature

“WebVine have not only rescued the intranet and made it a success, but they are transforming the way we work together at LJ Hooker.

Their expertise and professionalism has been outstanding and the results are just fantastic for this company. I highly recommend engaging WebVine for any

SharePoint projects you wish to undertake.”

Ryan Campbell, Head of Marketing & Technology

The result

• The CEOs number 1 project recently was Sitrion

(Newsgator) for SharePoint

• Plans to replace legacy systems

• Redesigned the Extranet for 7,000 Franchise staff...

As SharePoint provides

value

Social Enterprise

(Sitrion/Newsgator) for 7000

staff to collaborate

Communities where staff

share knowledge and ideas

How to grow the Intranet through delivering business value

LJ Hooker Case Study with WebVine

How to make SharePoint a Success!1. Do not stop after you build main intranet

2. Get exec support if possible

3. Pick a department or team

4. Identify daily grind tasks

5. Start off with 1 project with a limited budget

6. Track the time and efficiency saved

7. Show off the results

8. Repeat, repeat, repeat!

How to grow the Intranet through delivering business value

LJ Hooker Case Study with WebVine

Receive furtherInformation

Report:‘10 mistakes most companies make with SharePoint’

Report:‘SharePoint online vs SharePoint on-premise’

Link to ‘Why going to work is like going back in time’

E: marcus@webvine.com.au

W: www.webvine.com.au

M: 0433 069 389