CompanyNet created an intranet, which became known as ‘Stan’ (based on ‘Standard Life’, the company’s name at the time), as part of delivering a wider digital workplace that would enable Abrdn to better communicate across teams, departments and locations. Our extensive experience of designing, building and deploying intranets came to the fore in delivering Stan.

The first step was to undertake a large-scale card sort exercise with Abrdn staff in order to design an information architecture that met their expectations.

Then, we used our Kira intranet platform to accelerate the solution to a point where we could quickly start customising and building bespoke features required by Abrdn. We placed social features at the heart of the intranet, including user-generated newsfeeds to complement more traditional intranet features such as corporate news.

This enables staff to leave useful comments on pages, immediately share information with their colleagues, and hold ad hoc online discussions to quickly resolve issues.

Allan Tanner, Senior Digital Manager, Abrdn, said: “CompanyNet were very accommodating and keen to learn about the way we operate, and what they needed to do to help us get to the point of delivery.

They worked very hard to understand our requirements. They’ve got good insight into intranets, and extensive SharePoint experience; both of those were invaluable as we went through the project.”