Customer Solution Case Study

European Agency Enhances Collaboration with New Software

OverviewCountry or Region: BelgiumIndustry: Government, Transportation

Customer ProfileEUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, works on making European aviation safer, more performance-driven, and more environmentally friendly.

Business SituationEUROCONTROL was searching for new collaboration software to replace an older program that did not offer its stakeholders modern capabilities such as blogs and wikis.

SolutionEUROCONTROL is investigating Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 as a single collaboration foundation due to its blog, wiki, content-tagging, search, and people-finding capabilities.

Benefits Better collaboration functionality Productivity gains Expected IT savings Improved customer service

“With SharePoint Server 2010, we can potentially better fulfill our mission to create a safer, more capacious airspace in Europe.”

Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager, Collaboration Project, EUROCONTROL

EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, aims to help create a “Single European Sky” by coordinating air navigation services across Europe. However, the organization’s outdated collaboration software, used by hundreds of internal and external groups, actually began to inhibit communication when it could not accommodate wikis, blogs, and other collaboration methods that users wanted. EUROCONTROL decided to investigate Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 as its new collaboration standard, because features such as content-tagging, blogs, wikis, search, and document management are included out of the box. Once the new collaboration tool has been deployed, EUROCONTROL expects higher productivity from smoother work processes, IT savings from software license consolidation, and the ability to provide better service to stakeholders from more modern communications.

SituationEUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, is an intergovernmental organization made up of 38 member states. Its primary objective is to develop a seamless, pan-European air traffic management (ATM) system that fully copes with the growth in air traffic, while contributing to making European aviation safer, more performance-driven, and more environmentally friendly. Together with its partners, EUROCONTROL is committed to building a “Single European Sky” that will deliver the ATM performance required for the twenty-first century and beyond. EUROCONTROL is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, and has more than 2,500 staff members.

EUROCONTROL has a number of initiatives planned between 2009 and 2013 that should deliver a safer, more efficient, and more environmentally-friendly airspace. However, accomplishing these goals requires immense coordination among myriad stakeholders: 38 member states, national aviation administrations, airports, airlines, air navigation service providers, civil and military airspace users, as well as various international organizations and the European Commission. For example, the governing bodies of EUROCONTROL meet regularly and need a way to manage the inputs and outputs of their meetings. In addition, dozens of collaborative task forces focused on specific topics such as air traffic control problems, have been largely dependent on paper-based business processes and workflows that slowed things down.

EUROCONTROL had adopted a collaboration software program years before, but its difficult interface and limited capability discouraged use. Mostly, the program does not offer “Web 2.0” capabilities such as blogs, wikis, content-tagging, and people search. Because the system does not meet current user needs, groups started devising their own collaboration methods, which included sending documents as e-mail attachments, creating team sites using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and bringing in other types of collaboration and document management software.

By 2009, collaboration was more disjointed than ever. “Also, the older collaboration system was no longer supported by its community, and its failure would be catastrophic for our work,” says Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager on the Collaboration Project at EUROCONTROL.

With the pace of decision-making gathering speed all the time, and members increasingly demanding more modern collaboration tools, it became imperative that EUROCONTROL settle on a single collaboration platform that would meet its needs.

SolutionIn mid 2009, EUROCONTROL began a study to survey collaboration products on the market. By February 2009, the organization decided to investigate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, because of its solid core collaboration

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“The older collaboration system was no longer supported by its community, and its failure would be catastrophic for our work.”

Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager, Collaboration Project, EUROCONTROL

capabilities, user familiarity, and reasonable price.

However, “Office SharePoint Server 2007 lacked some of the social computing capabilities that we desired, such as blogs and wikis, but we thought we might complement it with third-party products,” says Pedro Fernandez-Sancho, Business and Technical Architect at EUROCONTROL. “However, when we learned about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, we knew that it would best meet our needs and we decided to wait for it.” SharePoint Server 2010, slated for release in late 2010, features much improved document management capabilities, blogs, wikis, discussion forums, user content-rating, and improved search capabilities, among other things.

EUROCONTROL enrolled in the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Technology Adoption Program and used SharePoint Server to create a collaboration system that will be tested with 50 internal users and selected external users. The development team spent about three months customizing SharePoint Server to EUROCONTROL specifications and integrating it with internal systems. It launched the pilot system in April 2010, and will analyze user feedback before making a decision to create a production application by the end of 2010.

One Place to Come TogetherGroups have created approximately 300 sites on the current EUROCONTROL collaboration platform. Once the SharePoint Server 2010 collaboration solution has been launched, these sites

will be migrated to it. Sites are expected to grow at a rate of about 50 a year.

The governing bodies of EUROCONTROL will use the new collaboration solution to manage the inputs and outputs of their meetings. Also, the many collaborative task forces—which include major industry players such as airports, airlines, and regulatory bodies—will manage their communications on the new collaboration site. In addition, EUROCONTROL will investigate SharePoint Server 2010 to implement collaboration workflows among its internal staff members and around 8,000 external stakeholders.

Content-Tagging, Wikis“Our users are overwhelmed with information,” Dumortier observes. “We expect that the content-tagging functionality of SharePoint Server will help them find the information that they are interested in. Also, at a later stage, we may set up the people-search function, hoping that our users will be able to find connections to relevant people more easily and so distribute knowledge across the agency more effectively.”

One of the most popular capabilities in SharePoint Server is the ease of creating wikis. “We have many experts in specialized topics such as the statistical analysis of air traffic flows, whose knowledge is really only in their own heads,” says Dumortier. “We want to offer them a place to share this knowledge and combine it with that of others, for the greater good of the organization.”

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“We have many experts in specialized topics. We need to offer them a place for to share this knowledge and combine it with that of others, for the greater good of the organization.”

Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager, Collaboration Project, EUROCONTROL

BenefitsWith Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, EUROCONTROL is helping to create a safer, more productive European airspace by enabling employees and participants from many agencies, airlines, and airports to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Better Collaboration, Smoother Work ProcessesEUROCONTROL will finally have a single collaboration system that internal and external groups will use to share documents and track progress on myriad issues. “Working on rules and decisions, and sharing information in general about new rules and flight plans, is critical to what we do at EUROCONTROL,” Dumortier points out. “With SharePoint Server 2010, we can potentially better fulfill our mission to create a safer, more capacious airspace in Europe.”

Adds Fernandez-Sancho, “Currently, we have collaboration silos when we would like to have a single, centralized collaboration system. Everyone in the organization, as well as our stakeholders, will be able to see conversations and document-postings happening around a certain area. This greater visibility will greatly promote participation and conversations. We would like to communicate information to one centralized space rather than worrying about making sure multiple groups disseminate the information to multiple places.”

Productivity Gains

EUROCONTROL has estimated that its single, consolidated collaboration site will save time for all employees, improve processes, and promote the exchange of information both internally and with external stakeholders.

Expected IT Savings The potential use of SharePoint Server in other areas may result in IT savings by consolidating software licenses and support to one product. “We want to minimize our operating costs that are currently spread across multiple platforms. This could make lead to a significant financial benefit,” Fernandez-Sancho says.

Improved Customer Service Because EUROCONTROL works with so many organizations and agencies across Europe, its technological offerings come under scrutiny by a wide range of technically demanding users. “By investing in the latest collaboration technologies, we are demonstrating to our stakeholders that we are offering the very best services to them and staying abreast with the latest communication and collaboration technologies,” Dumortier says. “Many of these organizations use modern technologies themselves and expect it from us. By selecting SharePoint Server 2010, as a possible replacement to our current collaboration platform, we are using modern software with sophisticated capabilities to help our customers solve their problems.”

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“Our users are overwhelmed with information. We expect that the content-tagging functionality of SharePoint Server will help them find the information that they are interested in.”

Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager, Collaboration Project, EUROCONTROL

“By investing in the latest collaboration technologies, we are demonstrating to our stakeholders that we are offering the very best services to them and staying abreast with the latest communication and collaboration technologies.”

Alexandre Dumortier, Project Manager, Collaboration Project, EUROCONTROL

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the Internet.

For more information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, go to:www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about EUROCONTROL services, call (32) 2 729 90 11 or visit the Web site at: www.eurocontrol.int

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010