TSG implements Microsoft SharePoint for Esh Group
The customer
In the mid 1990’s two highly successful businesses founded and based in Durham were merged to create what has become the largest indigenous construction company operating in the North of England – Esh Group.
The construction company employs nearly 1000 people, with Group Headquarters situated close to its original home of Esh Winning, Durham. Esh Group is an extensive national business with many services trading under the umbrella of Esh Construction Limited, including Esh Property Services, Esh Facility Solutions, Lumsden & Carroll Civil Engineering, Esh Build, and Stephen Easten Specialist Building.
'I was impressed with the level of knowledge that TSG had gained in the SharePoint area but more impressed that they had applied their technical knowledge to business problems and demonstrated ways to process information more efficiently.'
The customer objectives
The construction company was looking to invest in a platform that the whole Group could utilise in order to make processing of information more efficient; both intercompany and across the Group.
The TSG Solution
Phillip Dixon, Group IS Manager at Esh Group was invited to attend a Microsoft SharePoint event hosted by TSG which demonstrated the business benefits of having one central source of information as well as other key features to help streamline business practices. The event also covered the Nintex module which adds a drag-and-drop workflow designer, connectivity and advanced workflow features to the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 platform.
Having attended the event and learning the fundamentals of the Microsoft SharePoint product, Mr Dixon was confident in TSG’s capabilities to deliver what they needed, commenting, ‘I was impressed with the level of knowledge that TSG had gained in the SharePoint area but more impressed that they had applied their technical knowledge to business problems and demonstrated ways to process information more efficiently.’
The benefits of Microsoft SharePoint to the Construction Industry
Since the implementation of Microsoft SharePoint and the Nintex add-on, Esh Group has seen great improvements in the way they complete various business processes.
The Information Systems team in the construction company has already started deploying Nintex forms and workflow in the Human Resources area and have targeted Finance as the next project. ‘The departments themselves have been impressed by what we can do with the forms and how easy it is to manage the validation, approval and escalation of the forms’, Mr Dixon explains.
The team has also been very impressed with the way in which TSG has provided SharePoint and Nintex consultancy. Mr Dixon continues, ‘TSG has been invaluable for the Group IS team and will no doubt prove invaluable for the Group companies as a whole. TSG knows the SharePoint platform and the Nintex product range inside out but it is their ability to communicate this to the Group IS staff, from apprentice level upwards, that makes the difference. Once they learned more about our business and understood the areas where we were having issues they showed us several different suggestions as to how we could use SharePoint and Nintex to improve information flow.’
The future for TSG and Esh Group
Mr Dixon sees a bright future and working relationship with TSG. ‘Esh Group expects to benefit from improved quality of information and reduced processing times throughout the Group businesses; freeing up valuable people resources for more value added tasks thus providing Esh Group with a competitive advantage.’