A US Based Steel Giant connects its global offices virtually streamlining the business for competitive advantage with Customized Web-based Applications using MS SharePoint
The client is one of the largest global distributors, buyers and suppliers of carbon-based steel. The client is one of the global distributors, buyers, and suppliers of prime, excess prime/over rolling and secondary flat-rolled carbon-based steel. Currently, the client has annual sales of millions and growing. As part of this expansion, and in an effort to become more competitive and efficient, they have gradually established a network of distribution warehouses throughout the world, with 11 in North America alone. Annually, they turn approximately 120,000MT within North America and an additional 235,000MT globally.
Solution offered
Zelite offered package implementation services which included Requirement Specification, Configuration & customization and implementation of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016
Current Phase
Live & under Support Contract
The Need
As a technology-savvy organization, the client has invested million of dollars in its facilities to maintain, modernize, and add operations. They have seen the business benefits of being virtually well-connected with partners, retailers and customers, and wanted to extend that commitment to its entire organization. As a global organization, the client needed to be able to integrate its entire business functionalities and customer information sharing. Having offices in various locations made it difficult to share documents. In the highly competitive steel industry, demand comes largely from manufacturers of durable goods like motor vehicles, machinery, containers, and construction. The profitability of individual companies depends largely on efficient operations because most products are commodities sold based on price.
This inefficiency led the company to seek a partner with in-depth experience in Microsoft technologies to integrate its entire organizational functionalities to help to maintain the data and records electronically and to be able to keep track of its business and product requirements.
The Solution
Zelite developed a solution based on a range of Microsoft products for cost efficiencies and fit with the company’s existing IT infrastructure and skill set. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2016 was a clear choice for its rich collaboration features. Zelite built a customized web-based application solution that integrated with client-specific workflows and InfoPath forms, and custom email notifications and dashboard features. Users would be able to take advantage of the extensive search capabilities to quickly and easily find the information they need.
Benefits and Features
Housed internally, the SharePoint sites allowed access to services with single sign- on authentication. Zelite developed range of features which included
- Home Page – Web Parts Customization, RSS feed for latest steel trading news
- Business life Cycle which included
- Stock Management
- Contract Management
- Purchase Management
- Product Life Cycle using workflows which included
- Price Management based on Products
- Product Capabilities
- Inventory Management
- IT Asset Management for Software and Hardware and their license management
- Finance Management which included
- KMI for cash flows
- Financial Statements
- Account Manager Expenses
- Vendor Invoice Entry
- Cash Receipts
- MAS (Manage Account Services) Repository which included
- Journal Register
- Account receivables and payables
- Payroll
- Inventory
- Sales Order
- Bank Reconciliation
- Human Resource Management which included
- Recruitment Process
- Performance Review
- Meeting record Management o Account Manager Performance
- KMI
- Leave Management
- Travel Expense
- Employee Profile
- Training Management (Online and Classroom)
- RMA (Return Material Authorization)
- Integrated with Citrix (Third Party Application) for Employee Work Management
- Logistics Management
- Customer Information Management (Integrated with Sage CRM)
- Personal Document Management for users
SharePoint features connected the employees to information and important business resources with a powerful authoring framework that simplified content contribution. Centrally managed site design, publishing, and deployment capabilities seamlessly integrated cutting-edge management into the overall portal platform. In addition, the solution integrated with the company’s existing Customer Relationship Management System, so crucial business documents were automatically sent to the correct folders on the company’s servers. Employees could scan all paper documents the IT department received to create archived electronic copies, and the system would send these to the correct locations as well. After the system went live, Zelite outlined a system support engagement as part of an application maintenance service and currently supports this system.
Client-specific SharePoint components that were implemented included:
- Custom lists and request forms
- Power Apps
- Web Parts
- SharePoint web services
- Site Collections
- Excel Services
- Business Data Catalog
- Workflow
- Picture Libraries, Data Connection Libraries and Form Libraries
- Email notifications
- Role-based dashboards
- User profile services
- Event handlers for service requests and projects with role-based permissions
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This is the area where Microsoft SharePoint comes into play, without SharePoint development, there are higher chances of not getting your documents organized and maybe even difficult to find.
But they might not suit perfectly with every need of an organization, such as sharing and collaborating files efficiently with other departments or externally with vendors.
– Regulates the metadata for documents.
– Help in protecting documents from unauthorized access or use.
Administration by email isn’t just cumbersome and insufficient, it’s also not secure.
When considering the current corporate culture, a document will be delivered back and forth and it gets hard to figure out which is the latest version.
Microsoft Office 365 is a comprehensive combination of software and services offered by Microsoft. It includes all applications that are part of the Microsoft Office suite such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel etc. Additionally, it also includes Microsoft server products such as SharePoint Server, Lync Server, and Exchange Server. These applications are hosted in the cloud and can be accessed from almost anywhere in the world via the Internet.
Consider a warehouse manager who has your Outlook installed on your computer in your office. Someday, he is in the warehouse and needs to access her email immediately. You can find a computer in the store, but unfortunately, the mail is on your personal computer and therefore, you cannot access your email immediately. In such events, Exchange Online allows you to use the email from almost anywhere with the same familiar Outlook experience. Office 365 is a replacement for minor issues and other important remote work issues. Not only Outlook, but Microsoft 365 also provides remote access and modification of documents, spreadsheets, and slide shows.
Microsoft 365 is a revolutionary, cloud-based subscription service that can benefit your establishment in a big way. Apart from reducing your operating costs, this software provides your employees with all the necessary tools that can increase their productivity. With word processors, databases and hosted Exchange email applications, your employees and you will have access to all the necessary tools from practically any device (browser, etc.) from anywhere. There are two other reasons that Microsoft’s Office 365 software is a valuable addition to all small businesses.
Working Capacity
It is one of the most functional applications that has caught the computer software niche to date. If you hire a reputable IT consultancy company to tweak and align its broad features with your business model, you will highlight its business appeal and increase the profitability of your business venture.
With its wonderfully hosted Exchange email, you no longer have to grapple with annoying email services that can spoil your business in front of your customers. Furthermore, using its web-based SharePoint application, you can easily create a professional website and use it to market your products or services in a more professional way.
Another great feature in this version is the calendar feature. You can use it to track important events such as upcoming meetings wherever you are, using any device. You can monitor the schedules of all your employees and tweak them appropriately to increase productivity. With this, you remain in control of your business operations, no matter where you are.
Security
Compared to its predecessors, this version is highly secure. This is two-fold. First, Microsoft has developed and maintains a high throughput data center that hosts your data. Thus, unlike setting up a private server, which is subject to ISP security problems, equipment failure, and power outages, the 99.9% uptime guarantee in this data center will give your business a lot of boosts.
In addition to installing software and security updates to ensure that all your applications are running smoothly, Microsoft will protect your business-specific by filtering out bugs and viruses from all your emails in real-time. You can take comfort in knowing that everything you share or exchange on the Internet is 100% free from danger.
Although the benefits of using Office 365 in your small business are many, make sure you hire a reputable IT consulting company to help with the setup. These types of IT consultancy firms can help transform your small business into a Google app today.
