Learn how rapid growth left Tyson Foods with a mixed bag of intranet environments that were impossible to navigate and use and how BindTuning’s cloud-based, pre-built Office 365 themes and web parts became the “secret sauce” together with Dell EMC Consulting Services.

Tyson Foods is one of the world’s largest food companies, supplying chicken, beef, pork and prepared products to customers located around the world. With over 114,000 employees working in hundreds of offices and facilities, their intranet serves as a critical communications channel.

Business Challenge

A series of acquisitions had left Tyson’s IT department responsible for managing multiple legacy intranets built on different environments. The disparate systems were difficult to navigate and included out-of-date information. The sites were not mobile friendly and could only be accessed by employees who were at their desks or via VPN, further hindering employee productivity.

Tyson needed a flexible and secure cloud-based solution that their geographically dispersed workforce could access anywhere and anytime, empowering employees to share information and collaborate to drive maximum efficiencies throughout the business. Charles Norman, Lead Analyst at Tyson Food’s Workforce Productivity IS Center of Excellence, was charged with identifying a robust, flexible platform that was simple to use, could meet multiple business requirements, and be deployed within just two months.

Digital Transformation Outcomes:

• Empower employees to securely share and collaborate information assets on any device from any location
• Optimize business operations by deploying a consolidated, cloud-based SharePoint intranet
• Reduce the complexity and costs of IT

The Tyson Foods solution was recognized as the winner for Best Intranet Solution for User Experience, Design and Content Management at the 2018 Boston Intra.NET Reloaded Conference.

Strong Partnerships Enable Creative Solutions

With an aggressive timetable to satisfy, Norman immediately set out to discover new technologies that offered a speedier alternative to traditional development. His research led him to partner with BindTuning.

Traditional design and development for an enterprise level, custom Intranet generally takes at least 12 months and costs between $1-2 million. BindTuning’s innovative, cloud-based SharePoint platform would allow Tyson to replace their on-premise legacy systems without needing to allocate additional funding for custom coding or design. All the themes and web parts were already mobile responsive and could be set up to receive automatic updates, maximizing their technology investment while reducing the complexity and cost of IT.

Tyson asked BindTuning to recommend an implementation partner to collaborate with multiple department stakeholders to ensure a smooth onboarding process and rollout. They particularly wanted to work with a company that would not insist on building an intranet the “old school way” with a prolonged services engagement model.

Thankfully, BindTuning has established a strong network of partners experienced at reinventing products and services to drive business innovation. The depth of our relationships with our partners has positioned us to take a leadership role in the market and allows us to find the right match for our clients’ needs.

“We understood from the get-go that identifying the right partner on this project was critical. We needed a partner that would listen to Tyson’s requirements and understand their need to employ a faster way to build their intranet. That’s why we immediately reached out to Dell EMC to partner with us. We’ve worked with them before and have confidence in their ability to tackle Office 365 for enterprise clients. Dell EMC Services was the ideal choice to transform Tyson’s disparate legacy systems into a single, smart cloud platform to optimize their operations and inspire excitement and engagement among Tyson’s team members. Bringing them onboard was a key reason why this project was so successful.”

“Having themes and web parts that were already mobile friendly and responsive across devices made a big difference,” said Charles Norman, Lead Analyst in the Tyson IS Center of Excellence. “BindTuning made it easy for us to create a visually appealing site, one that could accommodate the needs of different departments quickly. Designing this on our own would have been difficult, time-consuming and costly. It probably would have required us to bring onboard additional talent that we didn’t have in-house.”

Flexible Onboarding Encourages Empowered Employees

Dell EMC implemented an agile, yet comprehensive onboarding process to ensure that every department being migrated during the first phase received the tools and support they needed to assess their requirements for search, workflow, event calendars, and document management.

Their flexible, open structure allowed for fast deployment and proved immediately popular. Instead of adopting a top-down approach, Dell asked every department to identify stakeholders who would work with them to identify key requirements and take ownership over their content, a process designed to promote greater employee engagement. Over the next few weeks, as more department sites where onboarded, Dell was able to generate enthusiasm and buy-in by sharing live examples of what different department intranets looked like.

Easy Status Updates Keeps Everyone In The Loop

With multiple stakeholders looking for status updates about the new intranet, Tyson quickly adopted Dell’s recommendation to dedicate a section on the intranet to serve as a project roadmap.

The page provided greater transparency and visibility into a highly complex project with many moving parts. In addition to explaining the goals and purpose behind the new intranet initiative, the page offered constantly updated details about department sites that had already been completed, were under active development or that would soon be updated.

Fast, Flexible Deployment Generates Excitement

Tyson’s new intranet was planned as a two-phase project. By the end of the first phase, six departments had been successfully migrated into a fully functional, mobile responsive intranet environment. Since the framework would only require configuring the themes and web parts rather than custom coding, Tyson gained a scalable, intranet with built-in future proofing via BindTuning’s automatic updates.

This fast mobilization of resources was made possible thanks to an agile methodology that ensured the first phase would be completed within eight weeks. Feedback gained from multiple business stakeholders during the first eight weeks was incorporated into the onboarding process for the remaining twenty plus departments.

BindTuning’s approach to product innovation allowed the Dell EMC team to “think outside the box” to meet Tyson’s aggressive timeline, and standout during a highly competitive proposal process. “They came up with a project methodology has been very agile,” Norman affirmed. “Of all the partners we talked to, Dell was the only one that worked with us on a collaborative basis to make this happen.”

“To go from nothing to something like this is in less than 6 months for 30% of the cost of a traditional route was an incredible proposition.”

Planning For The Future

Tyson’s original intranet environments contained a mix of public and team-only content. This created problems with search and posed a credible concern with information security. Furthermore, during the onboarding phase, some departments realized that their previous content was out of date. To prevent this from happening again, Tyson adopted Dell’s recommendation to establish a governance committee to drive improvement based on user feedback. Once the main department sites are complete, Tyson will begin work on creating team-only content sites.

• Empower employees to securely share and collaborate information assets on any device from any location
• Optimize business operations by deploying a consolidated, cloud-based SharePoint intranet
• Reduce the complexity and costs of IT

A Winning Scenario That Exceeds Expectations

BindTuning’s suite of products made it possible for Tyson to achieve their ambitious project goals. Their business operations have finally been consolidated onto a single, cloud-based SharePoint intranet that is easy to navigate and use. The consolidated intranet enables employees to securely share information assets and collaborate on projects no matter where they are located using their preferred devices. And last, but not least, by using BindTuning’s products, which allow for easy deployment and updates, Tyson has been able to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of their IT.

“Everything that was on my must have list, BindTuning already had. Their SharePoint themes and web parts could be easily customized and configured to fit our needs, plus they were mobile ready and responsive.”

Key Solutions:

• Microsoft® SharePoint™ Office 365®
• BindTuning SharePoint™ Office 365® Themes and Web Parts
• Dell EMC Digital Workplace Consulting & Program Management Services