Deeper into the net for Norman-Spencer
03.26.2009
Norman-Spencer Agency, a national insurance broker and a long-standing client of Topic, placed its continued faith in Topic's development and programming abilities by requesting that we build for them a new corporate intranet.
It was Norman-Spencer's desire to move away from their existing information management system, an archaic off-the-shelf application that had run its course. It was ill equipped to handle their ever-changing business needs, and moreover it was incapable of scalability.
Over multiple meetings with Topic, it was determined that the best course of action was to build a new platform, an online system with the capacity to handle multiple administrative levels, user functions, content features and information management processes that would streamline their document management, employee management, and business process management needs into a single enterprise solution.
Norman-Spencer's intranet was officially launched in January of this year. The comprehensive solution includes a dedicated human resources section for employee management, a finance section for accounting needs, a departmental section for handling all program documentation and marketing materials, a customer relationship management system, an asset archive management system, shared calendaring functions, equipment and room reservation systems, a content management system that drives the public site, and more. Client feedback has been overwhelmingly positive as the value inherent in their new system was instantly realized.
According to Stephanie Manhke, Norman-Spencer's Project Manager, "Our new intranet provides a 'one-stop' venue for everything related to conducting Norman-Spencer business. From human resources to insurance programs to marketing tools, the intranet has it all. It will make us more efficient, improve communication, and give us a better method of disseminating information. It will also allow us to manage our external website by giving us the ability to make our own changes in real-time. Having previously worked on the development and implementation of an intranet for a large corporation, my expectations were extremely high. I was thoroughly impressed by Topic Design. They are nimble, responsive and professional. They took the time to understand their customer as well as the end-user. The result is a sophisticated product that is simple to administer and use. They have done a great job of designing the site, providing us with functionality we need today, and giving us the flexibility to add capabilities going forward."