Building a global intranet for Oxfam International
A new communication network for the leading international charity, helping 17 affiliate organisations and 9000 field workers talk, share and co-ordinate.
The client
Oxfam International
Zaizi’s role
- Strategy
- Agile
- Product management
- Engineering
- Architecture
- Process automation
- Devsecops
- Cloud services
- Support
The client says…
Zaizi provided a very clear and useful consultation at the beginning of the project, and they provided all the technical implementation to make it work… they have provided an incredible level of support.
Gabriele Sani, Intranet Manager – Oxfam International
The brief
Oxfam is a confederation of independent charitable organisations located across the world. In 2010, Oxfam International identified an opportunity to dramatically improve communications and knowledge sharing across its affiliate organisations by creating a single global intranet.
At the time, the affiliates that make up Oxfam International used a mix of systems to communicate and share information. This made it difficult for each of the affiliates and its members to collaborate across geographic or organisational boundaries.
Oxfam wanted to improve the way its workers coordinated and developed shared projects and create and communicate a common strategy across the organisation.
The delivery
We delivered a new global intranet that included the following features:
- Working groups – allowing field workers to join over 700 groups to share information about established areas of business, or to create their own groups to discuss topics such as new developments in mobile technology
- Governance groups – a place for global team members to discuss, co-ordinate and share policies, governance and other materials
- News and information hub – a space for distributing information and assets such as press releases, new logos and updated branding information
Challenges
Connecting Oxfam workers – wherever they are based
Oxfam International has workers in more than 90 countries across the world. Many field workers in remote locations faced difficulties connecting to the internet and found it difficult or impossible to access current systems. We ensured that the new intranet would operate successfully for all users, even those with limited or poor connectivity.
Creating a secure, scalable system
Oxfam International wanted a system that was cost-effective but also futureproofed as the charity entered an estimated period of growth. “This was about more than simply controlling software license fees, but ensuring that the costs of integrating and adapting the chosen platform to our diverse IT architecture would stay within budget as we scaled,” says Gabriele Sani, intranet manager at Oxfam International.
Working in Drupal and Alfresco, we created a flexible, open source content management system that ensured the new intranet would be powerful and flexible enough to sustain the charity for years to come.
