With a 15-year-old custom-built intranet based on a legacy platform, insurance company Ethias was ready for a change.
High on their priority list was an easy-to-use intranet that could support multimedia integration, allow for user engagement, and provide an effective search engine. Customizable Valo Intranet was the perfect choice.
- Industry: Insurance
- Country: Belgium
- Company size: 1,001 – 5,000
Starting Point:
Belgium insurance company Ethias’s old intranet had become outdated. This one-way intranet didn’t allow for employee engagement or file sharing.
The centralization of content, handled by the communications department, created a bottleneck for intranet updates, with the team having to go through a cumbersome and time-consuming process each time new content needed to be uploaded.
In addition, the search engine wasn’t fit for purpose. Plus, it was not possible to publish video on the intranet, forcing the company to develop a separate channel for video content.
Solution:
Ethias was keen for their new intranet to be based on a proven solution. They asked several CMS solution providers for a demo to see if their tools matched their requirements. Valo Intranet, built on Modern SharePoint, (and thus Valo’s Premium Partner Amplexor) was their preferred choice.
Not only was Valo’s out-of-the-box intranet able to fulfil all of Ethias’s requirements, during deployment it soon became clear that Valo’s customizable intranet could be tailored to meet needs that were specific to the insurance sector client.
Benefits:
- Customizable Valo Intranet tailored to insurance sector needs
- Easy-to-use intranet means employees with permission can publish content independently
- Out-of-the-box intranet built on Modern SharePoint
- Intranet allows for two-way communication & increases employee engagement
- Valo’s Multilingual add-on feature saves time & enhances inclusivity
- Handy features include People Finder and Quick Links
Tailored insurance sector solution thanks to customizable Valo Intranet
During the deployment of “Oasis”, Ethias’s name for their intranet, it became clear that with some customization, Valo could add even more value to the business.
Ethias had previously been using a document-management system to share insurance documents between the company’s underwriters and sales agents.
The old system was outdated and not user friendly. Ethias’s team asked if Amplexor could offer a solution within the new intranet. And so “Galileo”, a huge library containing all the useful documents for their front and back offices, was born.
Using SharePoint, Amplexor created a gated content area within the intranet where users can find relevant documents relating to the different sectors in the business, ranging from household, car, health and travel insurance. Users are also able to share news and updates with their co-workers separately from the main intranet.
Thanks to Valo’s search engine and a classification specifically developed by Ethias’s and Amplexor’s teams, document searches are much easier and faster.
Since introducing Valo Intranet staff at Ethias now have one place to access all the information they need.
Content publishing open to all
With Ethias’s old intranet, publishing content was a time-consuming process, with all updates having to go through the communications team for publishing. One of the key priorities for the new intranet was to open up this process, allowing content publishing to be shared between different teams.
Since launching Valo Intranet, Ethias have delegated the updating of specifics pages directly to the departments concerned. However, the comms team retain the validation of information in order to guarantee the quality and continuity of the content.
One area where this has worked particularly well is for announcing new members of staff. With HR now being able to publish this news themselves. With over 165 new starters in the past year, it’s easy to see how much time this has saved.
Content in native language thanks to multilingual feature
As a Belgian company, Ethias’s staff speak both French and Dutch. Valo’s Multilingual add-on feature has therefore made a significant difference to the company. It allows them to have two versions of their intranet, one in French and one in Dutch, without the investment in time required to translate from scratch.
When Ethias staff publish a piece of content, Valo’s content publishing tool allows them to replicate the page in either French or Dutch. Although they still check the translation with a member of the team before publishing, the process is much easier and less time-consuming.
In addition, having the intranet content in employees’ native languages helps create a sense of inclusivity in the organization.
Valo Intranet’s Multilingual add-on feature is very important for us. When you have to effectively manage two intranets, it’s easy using Valo Intranet to create a mirror page in the same place in the other language.
No longer a one-way intranet
Thanks to Valo’s easy-to-use intranet, Ethias no longer has a one-way intranet. Staff can access company news and information easily, liking and commenting on what they find.
Plus, the soon-to-be-launched Valo Intranet mobile app will allow intranet access any time, anywhere and on any device.
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Could your organization benefit from an easy-to use, two-way intranet? Valo’s features and add-ons, from the multilingual tool to the People Finder functionality and Quick Links have the flexibility to suit most needs. Or if, like insurance company Ethias, you have specific requirements, our customizable Valo Intranet can be tailored to you.
Why not get in touch, or book a demo to find out more?
