Case Studies

The Client

A US $29.2 billion corporation, the Aditya Birla Group is in the league of Fortune 500. It is anchored by an extraordinary force of 130,000 employees, belonging to 30 different nationalities. The Group operates in 25 countries — India, UK, Germany, Hungary, Brazil, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Australia, USA, Canada, Egypt, China, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, Dubai, Singapore, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia and Korea. With a pan global presence the company envisions to be a premium global conglomerate with a clear focus on each business.

The Brief

The Aditya Birla Group is a global conglomerate that transcends geographical boundaries and is having an ever growing workforce that is spread across 38 Group/ Indian/ International/ Joint venture companies. Focused on providing ergonomically correct environment to its employees, the group is in constant endeavour to improve internal communication and resolve queries between its employees and departments. Therefore, to improve information sharing between administration and other departments and make it convenient, a web based application was required that could categorise and segregate information.

The Approach

HGS Interactive understood that the pan global organisation needed an online solution that served as a 'single window' for an employee to access pertinent information. The proposed system - Aditya Birla Group Admin Microsite works as a data bank, and is equivalent to customised Yellow pages of the organisation. An employee has direct login to information, so as to ease the workload of administration.

The Solution

• An application was created, wherein the primary data management was done by administrators and it could be accessed by any employee.
• Since Aditya Birla Group employees already used an intranet portal, a micro-site on the intranet portal was created.
• Designed to disseminate information in a cohesive manner, the site had answers to all of employee queries. In case any data/ information is not on the site, only then employees are required to drop a mail to the administrator, thereby streamlining the process.
• 'Escalation of matter', one of the important features of this site assures every query addressed to the administrator gets feedback. In this feature, when a certain matter/query is not addressed by a member of the administration, it gets escalated to the Super-admin, which then makes answering the query a priority.
• The application is highly interactive and includes features like discussion forums, image galleries, polls, etc. It also requests suggestions and feedback, so that users feel their point-of-view is important.
• 'Intelligent Search', a new feature is also incorporated in the site. With the 'Intelligent Search' feature, whenever a user types something in the search field, it gives a drop-down list of possible search options (as in Google search), that simplifies search.
• One of the features, 'Info Bank', that later turned out to be very effective and popular, holds lot of useful information segregated into requirements/ fields. The user can post requirements on the Info Bank so that it can be viewed and used by other employees. For instance: detailed sections like automobile, house, bank, admin procedure, etc., facilitate the employee with a plethora of solutions for all requirements.

The Result

Keeping in mind the primary motive of easy access to information, the micro-site was designed in a manner that would be user friendly at all times. The website serves as an almanac of the Aditya Birla Group. Sections like 'address book' allowed employees to connect with colleagues from around the world. The 'contact us' section includes detailed information that enables users to get the right feedback at the right time. The 'escalation' feature makes sure that no query is left unanswered; this means that every employee will have a confirmed feedback, which in turn results in employee satisfaction.