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Intervate launches dynamic Intranet service offering for fast, agile, flexible Intranet deployments


Johannesburg, 15 Mar 2016

* Intranet as a Service offers 'pay as you use' service without capital outlay.
* Ensures Intranet remains current with changing organisational needs.
* Opens up Intranet to new SME market due to increased cost-effectiveness.

Intervate, a T-Systems company, has launched its innovative new Intranet as a Service offering, delivered via the Microsoft SharePoint Online public cloud platform. The offering, built on agile principles, delivers a componentised Intranet solution that can be deployed quickly and easily as a standard framework, and can also be fully customised according to customer requirements. In addition, it offers a 'pay as you use' model that makes Intranets an affordable option for all sizes of enterprise.

"Intranets are by no means a new concept, but over the years, they have become increasingly static and outdated. However, new requirements for increased collaboration, centralised information sharing and corporate social hubs have seen the reinvention of the Intranet into a dynamic portal for information access, networking and improved productivity. These benefits have typically only been available to the large corporate, though, and often at significant capital cost and time investment," says Peter Reid, SharePoint Solutions Head at Intervate, a T-Systems company.

"Intervate's Intranet as a Service offering opens up this market to the small to medium enterprise, while still catering perfectly to traditional large enterprise customers. With a basket of components and services for organisations to choose from, including standard features and customisation, it shortens the time to deploy and increases agility and flexibility. As with all cloud services, it also turns a capital expense into a predictable monthly operational cost, and because customers choose only what they need or want, it is also highly cost effective, ideal for customers of all sizes," he adds.

As SharePoint solutions experts, Intervate has many years of experience in building tailored Intranet solutions for customers, based on the principles of agile development. This ensures that solutions delivered are fully flexible and continue to meet customer needs even as they change over time and the development cycle.

Utilising the components and services developed for numerous customers over the years, Intervate has created a full Intranet portal based on a generic platform. This is the starting point for a tailored solution, into which various components can be implemented and then customised according to the needs of the client. A component catalogue and a services catalogue guide customers as to their choices and selections, which in turn influences the monthly fee. Not only is this ideal for all company sizes, it also lends itself perfectly to the deployment of new Intranets as well as migrations and upgrades.

"Our Intranet as a Service makes use of the Microsoft SharePoint public cloud platform, hosted in Microsoft's data centre in Ireland, and we have worked closely with Microsoft to ensure the highest levels of governance. This not only improves cost-effectiveness and ease of delivery, but also fully complies with all relevant data privacy and protection legislation, including the Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act. In addition, many of the components were originally developed for heavily regulated industries such as mining and finance, and the structures therefore have stringent governance built in from the ground up," Reid adds.

For customers, the Intranet as a Service offering delivers numerous benefits. A single predictable monthly fee makes the solution cost-effective, and far less capital intensive than having to build and licence a bespoke solution. In addition, templated components speed delivery, and with flexible services solutions can be customised and altered to meet individual and changing requirements. This improves flexibility and the agility of deployment, and ensures solutions can be scaled up or down, or even added and terminated, as and when they are required.

"This offering combines our experience and pedigree into a single, simple solution for our customers. We have implemented it within T-Systems, a company of which we are an integral part, which not only shows the power of the solution but also our faith in its effectiveness. However, as with any of our solutions offerings, we will take the individual customer's needs into account and recommend the ideal solution for them based on their requirements. In many instances, a service-based offering is ideal, but we have the capability to deliver alternatives should this be required," Reid concludes.

Intervate's Intranet as a Service is available immediately. The company is also currently exploring methodology to deploy a similar solution on-premises in a private cloud for organisations where this is a strict requirement.

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of 31 December 2014). The group provides fixed network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228 000 employees worldwide. The group generated revenues of EUR 62.7 billion in the 2014 financial year - more than 60% of it outside Germany.

T-Systems

Deutsche Telekom considers the European business customer segment a strategic growth area. Deutsche Telekom offers small, medium-sized and multinational companies ICT solutions for an increasingly complex digital world. In addition to services from the cloud, the range of services is centred on M2M and security solutions, complementary mobile communications and fixed network products, and solutions for virtual collaboration and IT platforms, all of which forms the basis for its customers' digital business models.

With approximately 47 800 employees worldwide, T-Systems generated revenue of around EUR 8.6 billion in the 2014 financial year.

Since the inception of T-Systems in South Africa in 1997, the company has cemented its position as one of the most successful T-Systems companies outside of Europe. A leading ICT outsourcing service provider locally, T-Systems offers end-to-end ICT solutions in both the ICT operations and systems integration markets. Its extensive portfolio of services covers the vertical, horizontal, IT and TC space. T-Systems South Africa's head office is located in Midrand with another major office in Cape Town, and 20 further representative offices in locations throughout southern Africa.

Intervate

Intervate, a T-Systems business unit in South Africa, is a specialist provider of enterprise information management (EIM) and process automation solutions that improve productivity and collaboration, reduce costs and increase legal compliancy. It has over 14 years' experience in delivering solutions to enterprise customers in both government and private sectors. Intervate's technical expertise is supported by an understanding of the strategic drivers and challenges relating to EIM. This enables the company to provide its customers with professional guidance regarding the best practices proven to deliver successful projects and business benefits.

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