SMC implements MOSS 2007 in Middle East

SMC Enterprise has successfully completed the first of its offshore projects in the Middle East, an implementation of Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 for one of the largest upstream oil producers in the world.

The client required a solution for its employees to seamlessly communicate and collaborate across various offices located in the region. Their requirements included among others an enterprise intranet portal, notifications, document management and tracking, workflow and enterprise content management. MS Office SharePoint Portal 2007 (MOSS) was identified as the most suitable solution to fit in their heterogeneous Microsoft and SAP environment.

Says Nadir Kamdar, Lead MOSS consultant: "Working with our team back in SA whilst being one of the customer facing consultants in Saudi Arabia, proved remarkably efficient. Our capable team has a deep understanding of .Net development and SharePoint, which made the project delivery very straightforward."

Kamdar adds that major challenges on the project included change management and technology integration. The client had an investment in all major technology platforms including Microsoft, SAP, J2EE, Oracle, Documentum, Scada and others. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal and Office 2007 play a vital role in consolidating and managing the lifecycle of information assets of this vast and complex organisation.

A few short weeks after deployment, the client has already realised significant cost savings in their paper bill by communicating memos and news via the SharePoint Portal. The next goal is to get a critical mass of usage in the document collaboration functionality of SharePoint, which will greatly increase productivity in this environment; concludes Kamdar.