Creating a Modern SharePoint Intranet for a Premier UK Real Estate Development Company
Summary
This real estate investment and development company worked with Intelogy to implement a SharePoint Online intranet that provides a modern, flexible and well governed foundation for communications and information across the organisation.
Challenges
This real estate client creates, owns and manages some of the UK’s most sustainable and high quality real estate. The company required an intranet that reflected the scale, responsibility and ambition of its organisation.
The legacy intranet had been custom built, was increasingly difficult to evolve and didn’t align with the company’s wider Microsoft 365 strategy. They needed:
- A new intranet with a strong focus on news and communications.
- A clear and scalable architecture based on best practice SharePoint principles.
- A redesigned homepage and information structure.
- A consistent approach for departmental sites.
- Support to enable confident ownership across teams.
The new solution needed to set the organisation up for long term growth, ensuring the intranet would remain governed, intuitive and sustainable.
Solution Overview
Intelogy delivered the project using its established five-phase methodology: Discover, Design, Build, Launch and Evolve and worked collaboratively with the client at each stage.
Discover
Through multiple workshops we explored all the requirements, existing intranet features, security needs and architectural preferences.
Design
Intelogy translated the insights from the workshops into a practical, scalable design that included homepage prototypes, site structure recommendations, metadata and content models, navigation considerations, a search framework and template approaches for pages and news. A transition plan was created to guide the move from the legacy platform.
Build
We implemented the intranet within their tenant using the latest SharePoint features including:
- A home site incorporating clear global navigation and relevant content.
- A single document library to house all the content, with metadata applied.
- Security settings including role-based permissions.
- Standardisation of page templates to ensure a uniform look and feel for all content.
Launch & Evolve
The launch included communications activities, transition planning and application of final security settings. A post launch support period allowed for adjustments, feedback review and adoption planning.
Client Benefits & Results
Sustainable platform
The new intranet provides them with a sustainable platform which aligns with the wider Microsoft 365 strategy.
Improved governance
The architecture, navigation, metadata, security setting and role-based permissions ensure the intranet can scale without becoming disorganised or inconsistent.
Consistent communication
The fresh home site, clear navigation and templated approach to news and pages create a consistent and engaging experience for staff.