Apparatus Streamlines Company's Website, Marketing Efforts

Client Profile

Indianapolis-based Interactive Intelligence Inc. (NASDAQ: ININ) is a global provider of unified business communications solutions for contact center automation, enterprise IP telephony and business process automation. Founded in 1994, the company employs approximately 650 people, and has annual revenues in excess of $121 million. Its flagship solution is an all-in-one IP communications software suite for enterprises and contact centers. This solution’s open, software-based, single-platform architecture was designed to deliver comprehensive applications minus the cost and complexity of multi-point products. The company also provides hardware, consulting, support, education and implementation services.

Challenge

By 2008, Interactive Intelligence had implemented a Microsoft SharePoint-based intranet so its 600+ employees could quickly and easily find and share information, collaborate, and effectively update documents and other files to keep information current. The company’s marketing department hoped to bring similar capabilities to reconstruct its sales website, which then included “orphaned” pages, incorrect or outdated information and design cues and functionality that varied throughout the website. Besides improving the website’s usability for its customers, the company also wanted to streamline its content management by reducing the marketing department’s reliance on IT staff for updating information. However, they also needed to maintain control of personnel permitted to upload information and make layout and other changes.

Solution

“Our marketing department wanted to hire a web designer,” says Rob Fairman, SharePoint/Web Administrator for Interactive Intelligence. “But I wanted to make sure whoever we worked with had SharePoint experience, too.” Marketing personnel, Fairman says, reviewed a number of Indianapolis web design agencies hoping to find one capable of creating and building the website’s architecture, master pages and corresponding templates within a SharePoint framework. “None did,” he says.

Familiar with Apparatus and its design capabilities, Fairman contacted the company to discuss its SharePoint expertise and the project’s requirements. “At the time, I was the only person in our IT department devoted to supporting the SharePoint implementation,” Fairman says. “I didn’t have the capacity for project work and operational support at the same time.”

Results

Apparatus designers worked closely with Interactive Intelligence marketing personnel to create an entirely new website that reflected the company’s latest branding strategy. The designers also created multiple SharePoint-ready master page and template options to unify the website’s appearance and operation. Besides meeting marketing and user requirements by bringing consistency to the website, it reduced Fairman’s involvement in the project and enabled him to devote his support to operations’ issues instead. “I knew I wouldn’t have to convert the pages into SharePoint,” Fairman says. “That saved me a considerable amount of time.”

The new pages also gave marketing personnel the capability to manage website content themselves, which eliminated the IT resource bottleneck. “I was spending 25-50 percent of my time making content updates to the website,” Fairman says. “We went from one person to a dozen people who could make updates. Our site is more current because more people are updating it.”

And after reviewing the company’s website, Apparatus designers reorganized the website’s content and then developed the high-level infrastructure needed to streamline and improve the functionality and navigation. Internally, designated marketing users have predetermined locations for adding the latest collateral, product demos and case studies for sales support. The website also better meets user expectation – an especially important consideration given the company’s technological focus and product promise. And external users have a website that looks and operates the same, page after page. “The consistent look and feel certainly makes it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for,” Fairman says.

One Last Point To Share
For more data sheets and additional information about Microsoft SharePoint services, click here.