TAHOESMART™: NAVISTAR

Navistar is a $13 billion manufacturer of industrial trucks, military vehicles and diesel engines. A few years back, the company deployed SharePoint as a cornerstone of its enterprise collaboration strategy. While employee adoption and contributions were high, SharePoint was unveiled without a formal strategic vision or governance plan. Over time, significant unchecked growth made it difficult for employees to find what they needed. Additionally, Navistar has multiple content management tools creating confusion over which one to use and when. Because Navistar plans to migrate to SharePoint 2010, Management engaged Tahoe to ensure processes, rules, and protocols are put in place so current problems are addressed prior to moving to the new environment.

 

The problem Navistar experienced is a common hurdle many companies face. Often, organizations are so focused on the infrastructure development and actual SharePoint launch that without a strategic partner, governance plans and a long-term strategy can be overlooked or given short-thrift. User adoption is typically very high with SharePoint—and eventually organic growth can become unmanageable, creating the very problem SharePoint was designed to fix in the first place. Our goal was determine how SharePoint—along with Navistar’s other content management platforms (e.g. tools used for technical publishing, contract management or image scanning)—fit together in a unified, enterprise content management strategy.

 

We began with an assessment and strategic road map, documenting the current state, pain points, and best practices for Governance, Content Management, Development and Support, Training, Social Networking, Communications, Infrastructure and Chargeback Approaches. Next, we identified key activities within each of these blocks. From this list, together we identified the core priorities for the next 3 to 6 months. Currently, Tahoe is executing against this roadmap while developing a migration plan from SharePoint 2007 to 2010. The migration plan includes policies and guidelines for the SharePoint 2010 environment along with roles and responsibilities for Navistar’s SharePoint team. The next phase will involve expanding these initial guidelines into a full Governance Plan for SharePoint as well as Navistar’s other content management tools.

 

In parallel with these efforts, Tahoe is collaborating with Navistar and NewsGator on the implementation of NewsGator’s social business software within SharePoint. This cutting-edge networking component will enable real-time collaboration across global business units—through communities of interest and project teams—and eventually be expanded to partners, vendors, and dealers.

 

In developing a strategy for Navistar’s enterprise content management landscape, Tahoe is pushing through activities and plans that previously weren’t getting appropriate attention. We are also working with Navistar’s SharePoint Team to ensure all their users understand the software’s full capabilities, including new features in SharePoint 2010. Combining these efforts with the creation of policies and guidelines for SharePoint and their other content management resources positions Navistar to get more from each tool while increasing the impact and return on all of the company’s ECM investments.