Cast Study – Reed Managed Services

Reed

Reed Managed Services – A Single Desktop for all Branch Consultants

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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”

Patsy Drake, IT Director - Reed Managed Services plc

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”

Romain Sutton, Head of Technical Architecture - Reed Managed Services plc

The Benefits of Using Alfresco:

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Fast Facts

Company Details

  • Leading UK Recruitment, Training and Consultancy firm
  • Sales of over £0.5bn
  • 3000 Employees in 305 Branches
  • 20 Specialist Recruitment Divisions and 6 Separate Companies
  • Leading UK Commercial Jobsite reed.co.uk – 200,000 live jobs online

Industry

  • Recruitment, Training, Consultancy, HR Outsourcing and Welfare to Work Services

Business Challenges

  • Single Desktop for all Branch Consultants
  • Xpress – Single Point of Access for all Applications
  • Online access to Documents for Training, Client Accounts and Best Practice Procedures

Technical Challenges

  • Replace Current Business Excellence Manual and Incorporate Role-Specific Training and Computer Based Training
  • Produce Best Practice in Documented Form rather than Implied Form – Document Templates and External Resources
  • Distributed Access for all Reed Employment including Hospitality, Industrial Divisions and in the next phase other Reed Companies
  • Login Identifies which Documentation is Accessible
  • Email and Workflow Integration

Why Alfresco?

  • Open Source
  • Standards Based
  • Performance and Scalability
  • Integration with Existing Infrastructure
  • Zero Training Requirement Easily Met
  • User Centered Design
  • Easy-to-Use Portal Components
  • Aspect Oriented Design

Benefits

  • Fully Searchable Site on Attributes, Content, Categories and Folder Location
  • Documentation in one Place
  • Ease-of-Use - Allowing Users to Easily Maintain Information keeping Content Up-to-Date
  • Time Savings
  • Document Control by Teams and Co-Members
  • Range of Document Support – Word, Excel, HTML, PDF, Links and Computer Based Training Courses

Technical Profile

  • Hardware -  2 Node Dual x86 Intel Cluster
  • Operating System – Linux RedHat ES3
  • CPU – 3.2GHz Dual/Server
  • RAM – 4GB/Server
  • Database – Oracle 9i
  • Webserver – Oracle AS 10G
  • Database Size – 100GB
  • Sizing – online system
  • New candidates in past 12 months 550,000
  • 500,000 existing users
  • 2.7 million job records created in past 12 months
  • Number of candidates registered/exported in 12 months 212,684
  • Number of new jobs 214,534