SharePoint website case study: Alfa Laval

(PHILADELPHIA,
PA) External website case study using MOSS 2007 presented by Pernilla
Webber, Alfa Laval, at J. Boye – Philadelphia 2009.

“SharePoint
has handled it very well (external website and extranet).”

Overview

• Business
  to business company founded in 1883

• Services:
  heat transfer, separation, fluid handling (heat exchanges, etc.).

• Revenue:
  $2.7 billion Euros in annual sales.

• Employees:
  10,500 in 60 countries

• Public
  website luanched in SharePoint in May 2008

• Extranet
  planned for June 1, 2009

• Intranet
  pre-study started for launch in 2010

Public
website (www.alfalaval.com)

• 3000
  pages

• 25
  languages

• 60
  country sites

• Pre-study:
  1-year (planning, etc.)

• Implementation:
  1-year (launched May 2008)

• Project
  team of 5 people

• 50%
  of money on external dollars; 50% internal time and resources

Implementation
strategy

• Standard
  SharePoint

• Limited
  external application integration

• One
  platform for public website, extranet and intranet

  • Strategic
    direction

  • Operatonal
    efficiency

  • Functional
    development

  • Governance
    and resources (single governance structure for all sites)

Challenge
/ problem: Variation system

• Custom
  development to allow for

• Submit
  variation to slected country sites

• Reject/Accept
  a submitted variation

• Submit
  variation' doesn't work for web parts

• Reuse
  of language versions not possible

Challenge:
separating language/locale

• Only
  one language version

  • Spanish
    in Spain, Chile, Colombia, etc.

  • English
    in UK, India, US

• Many
  languages are supported – but its not supported to have one
  language for the CONTENT and another rfor the authoring environment

Challenge:
Image management

• Where
  is a particular image used? What pages?

• Different
  versions of the same photo are not grouped together by type

• Overly
  basic / simplistic

Challenge:
creating forms (complicated for authors)

Challenge:
formatting is difficult with standard editor (reusable cotnent
doesn't work with the RadEditor)

Integrator:
Fishbone Systems AB

Analysis:
well this blows out of the water the notion that SharePoint shouldn't
be used as an external website platform. The Alfa Laval site is
impressive – with 60 sites in 25 languages. Microsoft would do well
to add this to their case studies alongside Hawiian Airlines.

Visit
the website: www.alfalaval.com

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