Cast Study – Reed Managed Services
Reed Managed Services – A Single Desktop for all Branch Consultants
Reed enjoys a leading position in the UK recruitment, training and HR consultancy sector at a time when people are recognized to be the key component of any organisation’s success. Reed was founded on May 7th 1960 when Alec Reed, opened the first Reed branch in Hounslow, West London. Since then, the company has grown organically into one of the UK’s largest private businesses with over 3,000 employees and 305 branches that now generate sales of over half a billion pounds a year.
Reed Managed Network Services, part of Reed Managed Services, provides IT services to the six Reed companies. The top priority project for RMNS for 2005 is to provide a single desktop for all branch consultants. This desktop, known as Xpress, will give a single point of access for all applications required by the consultant. One of the key components of Xpress will be online access to documents to improve the availability of information relating to training, client accounts and best practice procedures. As the RMNS development team were fully occupied developing the front office application, an off-the-shelf solution was investigated. After considering several possible options, the team’s recommendation was Alfresco.
“Open Source changes the whole cost profile of Enterprise Content Management”
Distributed Access to Best Practice Documentation and External Resources with Email and Workflow
The main aim of this project is to provide a consolidated resource containing the best practice tools, guides, and training materials that a Reed consultant needs to perform their role effectively. The first development will be for Reed Employment and is intended to replace their current Business Excellence Manual and to incorporate role-specific Training materials as well as existing Computer Based Training Packages. These resources will be available to all Reed Employment, including their Hospitality and Industrial divisions. The next phase of development will be to include the other Reed companies, i.e. Reed Managed Services, Reed Executive, Reed Personnel Services, Reed-in-Partnership, and Reed Learning.
The user’s login will identify which documentation is accessible. The development will also provide a source for newly created Best Practice Standards documentation which will see best practice in a documented, rather than implied form. Whilst the majority of content will be in the form of template documents and links to external resources, there are certain levels that require additional functionality e.g. email, workflow.
Why Reed Managed Services Chose Alfresco
Alfresco’s architecture is open-source, modular and standards-based allowing RMNS to use only certain functionality and add new features as requirements grow, based on industry standard tools.
Reed wanted an open source solution, which offered performance and scalability, but that could easily be integrated with the existing infrastructure. This was made much easier by Alfresco’s stated aim of making anything they do transparent and open.
RMNS also has an ‘easy to use, zero training requirement’ which was easily met by Alfresco. The benefit of the Alfresco development team’s many years of designing document management tools is that they have employed a user-centred design that has been able to package easy-to-use portal components for managing and organizing content.
Alfresco shifts focus from the ‘document’ to the content of the document. The Aspect-Orientated design of Alfresco provides the unusual ability to blend software components with content – hence, making mini-applications out of previously inert documents.
“Alfresco takes ECM from the Client-Server World of the 90’s into the SOA, Web Services and Aspect Oriented World of Today”
The Benefits of Using Alfresco:
- Fully searchable site
- Documentation is in one place
- Easily maintained by users and therefore contains information that is up to date and of a high standard
- Less Confusion – Time saved by individuals, example for teams always dealing with queries
- Control by specific teams and Co-members
- Range of documents has scope, can use Word, Excel, Html, PDF, links and CBT courses