Intergen's newsletter, Smarts, now available for online reading. Intergen provides information technology solutions across Australia, New Zealand and the world based exclusively on Microsoft’s tools and technologies.

1. INTERGENITES OUT & ABOUT >> 2
THE FUTURE OF DYNAMICS ERP >>
6WINDOWS PHONE 7 >>
7
INFRASTRUCTURE
MANAGEMENT SERVICES
8WEB STRATEGY: USER TESTING
9SPOTLIGHT ON RETAIL >>
10SHAREPOINT 2010 IN ACTION >>
11PROJECT MANAGEMENT >>
12
>> HOT NEWS:
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT >> 3
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS CRM 2011 >> 4
>> T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M AG A Z I N E I S S U E 24
>>
RECORDS MANAGEMENT >>
5
< Copyright 2010 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of Intergen Limited >
After a slower than usual start to the year, I can’t believe the
amount of activity we’re seeing now. All areas of our business
are growing and we’re setting new records every month.
The economy is still clearly depressed but I think what we
are seeing is that people are a bit “over it” and keen to get
on with things. We are seeing good quality opportunities
turning into great projects. It’s not a return to the “good old
days”; it’s different. Business and government alike are much
more discerning and projects, now more so than ever, have to
show a positive return on investment. And that’s the way we
like it. Projects with real business needs are more successful
and more gratifying to work on. We hope this continues.
You may have noticed some renewed emphasis from us on the web. Delivering
websites and web applications has always been a key part of our business
but perhaps has been a bit overshadowed of late by our activities with the
Microsoft Dynamics product set. We put emphasis on a good user experience
with everything we do and have a very long track record of delivering some
significant websites. Everyone is on the web now but that doesn’t mean that
everyone is getting the best from it. We recognise the importance of a good
web strategy, and with Giles Brown on board, we can now offer that all-
important link between strategy and execution (see page 8 for some thoughts
from Giles). We can now work with you right from the very
beginning, when you’re first considering your strategy, right
through design and development to support and hosting.
October saw the long-awaited launch of Microsoft’s new
Windows Phone 7. It was certainly worth waiting for. I have
been a Microsoft Phone user since 2002 and the technology
has certainly come a long way. WP7 is a great device with
a good mix of business and personal features – certainly a
worthy challenger to the iPhone. We already have experience
in developing applications for the Windows Phone 7 and you’ll
see more on that over the coming months.
In 2010 Microsoft launched their latest version of Office and
SharePoint. SharePoint 2010 is a big step forward with many
new features we’d been waiting for. Next year the big thing
for us will be CRM 2011. We have been working with pre-
release versions for almost a year now and can’t wait to begin to deliver new
solutions and upgrades to our clients. CRM 2011 represents another quantum
leap forward for Microsoft’s CRM offering.
Unbelievably we are nearing the end of another year. Intergen will be
celebrating its 10th year in business in 2011 and we look forward to sharing our
celebrations with you. Until then, from everyone at Intergen, we wish you and
your families a very Merry Christmas, safe holidays and a Happy New Year.
Sliding into 2011
>>
tony.stewart@intergen.co.nz
Intergen is “all in” the Cloud
Earlier this year Steve Ballmer said of Microsoft’s
commitment to the Cloud: “For the cloud, we’re
all in.” And Intergen is following suit. We’ve just
moved all our 240 mailboxes to the Cloud. Look
out for the full story in the next issue of SMARTS.

2. >>2 >> I N T E R G E N I T E S O U T & A B O U T < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >
What's been happening?
From Pit Crews to parties, from nerd appreciation days to lots of hard work (and not
necessarily in that order), it's been a busy second half of the year. Here's a story in pictures...
1. Need a nerd? The Auckland Intergenites put their inner geeks on display.
2. Everyone’s a winner. Intergenites take part in a celebratory lucky dip, with each and every
Intergenite winning a prize.
3. GM of Sales, Bruce Smith sparkles before putting an abundance of hot air to good use.
4. Christchurch Intergenites chill out in yellow.
5 & 6. The Intergen Pit Crew at this year's TechEd.
7. Dressed up like Teletubbies, the Christchurch team goes go-karting.
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3
5 6
4
2
7

3. >>3>> E M E R G E N C Y M A N A G E M E N T < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >
Technology in times of turmoil – how our Christchurch
office got through the earthquake
cell phones and texting utilising our Emergency Management eSponder tool.
We got hold of all our staff by phone to make sure everyone was okay, and
information was communicated back to the organisation nationally on a daily
basis. We considered using Facebook and Twitter as a way of our people staying
connected with each other throughout a really unsettling time, but found with
remote access available and a communications plan in play, we didn’t need to.
Intermittent power outages did threaten our connectivity, and because of
this, on Wednesday following the quake, we made the decision to ship all of
our services to our Wellington environment to ensure business continuity was
maximised. We were fortunate to have a strong and robust infrastructure, and
an Information Systems team who were committed to putting in the hard yards
and minimising disruption to our remote IT services. By Wednesday night the IS
team had completed the transition.
We were lucky in that the extent of damage we suffered was some cracked and
broken windows, and we were all back in the office the following Monday.
It was great to see in action the role technology can play in times of our greatest
need, and it was humbling to be a part of such a strong and connected network.
Tim Mole (far right, below) is Intergen’s General Manager – Southern.
timm@intergen.co.nz
>> INTERGENITE:
Tim Rowe
What do you do?
I’m one of two account managers based in
the Christchurch office. My role is primarily
to maintain the relationship between
our clients and us so that we continually
understand what’s happening around our
clients’ organisations.
How do you make a difference?
I like to get to know the people, because
it’s the people that truly make the
difference. I like talking with clients to
understand what their pain points are,
what keeps them up at night and then
ultimately providing solutions that remove
that pain, so they can focus on the areas
that really matter to them.
What do you love about your job?
Again, getting out and talking with
our clients, understanding them, their
business, understanding what really makes
their organisation successful. Having a
chat over a coffee and working through a
shared vision to bring value – that’s what I
enjoy the most.
A bit about yourself?
I’m a very family focused person, married
with two children. I love the outdoors and
can’t wait until my kids are old enough to
look after the boat while I’m down having
a dive. We have just recently returned to
Christchurch from Wellington where we
were for seven years. Great times up there,
but it’s good to be home!
Tim Mole (far right, below) is Intergen’s General Manager – Southern.
timm@intergen.co.nz
When your IT systems are running well, you want to be able to
forget about them. You want to be able to trust that they’re in good
hands and doing what they need to be doing in the background
so you can get on with your core business. And, when an emergency
hits, you realise just how much you rely on technology to get you
through, and it becomes more critical than ever.
As an IT company, we look at companies’ systems for a living, and it’s not often
we stop and talk publicly about our own. But it was technology to the rescue
for Intergen’s Christchurch office in the week following the quake. Although the
office itself was officially off-limits, along with most of the Christchurch CBD, all
our staff were connected and able to work remotely from the Monday morning.
Amazingly, when we looked back on the week and surveyed the impact on
business, we found we’d only lost 20% utilisation out of the Christchurch office.
How did we manage it? Well, technology played a huge part. But technology
is of course nothing without the people who use and drive it, and we had a
fantastic support network nationally, from our leaders, our Information Systems
team and our Emergency Management practice.
On the Sunday after Saturday’s earthquake, I was able to get into the office
and get our servers back up and running after they’d shut down with the
power outage. We then set up communication channels through our Intranet,
The Christchurch team post-quake:
shaken but not stirred.

4. >>4 >> M I C R O S O F T D Y N A M I C S C R M 2 011 < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >
CRM 2011 – the latest
and greatest
The long-awaited release of Microsoft Dynamics
CRM 2011 is just around the corner. While the beta
has been released, Intergen has had exposure to
CRM 2011 for quite some time and we’re very excited
about the new features. These are some of the best
things on offer – in our opinion, anyway!
New look and feel
The first thing you’ll notice when you open up CRM 2011 from either Outlook
or the Web interface is that it looks a little different. There is now a ribbon
across the top that matches the latest Office look and feel. From within
Outlook there is now a preview pane for CRM! You can also personalise your
preview pane by pinning tabbed views and moving sections around, allowing
you to arrange information to suit your work style. All grid views within the
system can be filtered using Excel-like filtering mechanisms.
New features
CRM 2011 is jam-packed with new features which are set to provide vast
improvements for the day-to-day operation of the system as well as how the
user interacts with it.
Here are some of the highlights...
An interactive point-and-click interface will enable users to create and format
their own custom dashboards throughout the system. This allows for intuitive
performance management and visualisation of information ensuring that
tracking performance is a breeze. CRM’s security framework is now even more
granular, effortlessly allowing you to determine which users are allowed
to view information down to attribute level. In addition to this, system
customisers can now create multiple forms per entity. These can be configured
to meet role specific requirements, enabling users to view information
personalised to their role. Out of the box field auditing has also been
introduced, allowing you to track changes to important fields in your system. Not only
can users look forward to some fantastic changes, system customisers and developers
can also make use of an exciting array of new features including global picklists, inline
grid views and drag and drop form editing. This is in addition to Silverlight support,
native SharePoint and Dynamics NAV integration and Azure linkages to extend the
scope of Microsoft CRM and make it easier to integrate and manage.
Improved functionality
If you think the evolution of CRM from version 3 to 4 was impressive, you will be
blown away by the next wave of improvements in CRM 2011. One we are particularly
excited about is the fact that records can now be owned by a team and not just a
user, a common requirement amongst our customers.
The integration with Microsoft Outlook has also been improved with new navigation
features as well as utilising core CRM functionality such as email templates and
sales literature from within an Outlook email.
If you work with Marketing Lists in CRM you will be pleased to know that in
addition to the standard static marketing lists, you can now have dynamic
marketing lists based on a result of a query. You no longer have to
re-evaluate your marketing list members manually. You can also run
advanced find queries based on just the members of the marketing list.
Through workflows you can create wizard-based dialogs that can be
branched based on user response. This creates a natural user experience
when users are required to capture information as it flows through your
business processes.
Increased flexibility
When it comes to super users and administrators, CRM 2011 doesn’t hold
back, either. New features simplify these users’ task by providing more flexibility.
You can now create new activity entities. This is great as you no longer have
to rename an existing activity entity and can create as many custom activity
types as needed, all grouped within the ‘Activities’ area.
Form configuration is a lot simpler as you can use drag and drop to move
fields around and also create global picklists that are available to multiple
entities.
avigation
es and
in
c
.
ve
vity
e
If you are in a multi-organisation
environment, you can have your CRM
Outlook client pointing to multiple
environments! You won’t have to reconfigure
your CRM Outlook client every time you want
to connect to another CRM organisation.
What’s not to like? If you’d like to know
more about what’s in store, email
rexw@intergen.co.nz, sophiec@intergen.
co.nz or maryseb@intergen.co.nz – we
always like talking CRM with people!
Some of our resident CRM gurus: Sophie Khun, Rex Wessels and Maryse Botros.

5. < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R > >>5>> T H E F U T U R E O F D Y N A M I C S E R P
What lies ahead in the
world of Dynamics ERP?
In terms of product updates, it’s been quiet on
the Dynamics ERP front since the release of
Dynamics GP 2011 earlier this year, but things
are about to get a lot busier!
Intergen is lucky enough to be involved in the Microsoft Technology Adoption
Programmes (TAP) for NAV 7 and AX 6 – due out in 2011 – which lets us see
the improved functionality behind the scenes and provide qualified feedback.
While we’re only allowed to chat one-on-one with customers about developments
here (so by all means get in touch for a chat!), there are a number of key
advancements we’re allowed to shout from the rooftops about:
Dynamics NAV 2009 R2
The release date for this is imminent. What will be in it? In short: the features
that were on the agenda for NAV ‘7’ but are already completely finished.
What’s new?
Integration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. On-premise and online, this supports
CRM 4.0 and 2011, and includes a long-awaited standard connector from Microsoft
(free), giving out-of-the-box integration between Dynamics NAV and CRM.
Online Payment Service for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This enables payment
from the NAV interface across multiple channels, including e-commerce, point
of sale and call centre, working with leading payment processing services and
all major credit cards. (This feature is not available in the first release of R2 in
New Zealand.)
Role-tailored interface access for remote or roaming users. This reduces
complexity and overhead, allowing remote users to take advantage of the role-
tailored interface and the many integration features connected to local resources.
Microsoft Application Virtualization support. The role-tailored interface can
be deployed using Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) technology,
which cuts costs through centrally managed installations and provides a
better experience for the end user.
Windows 7 user experience improvements. Numerous features for increased
business productivity and efficiency, like jump lists for recently accessed
customers and vendors and streamlined icon overlay functionality.
Treemap visualisation. Richer business data visualisation, comparison and
end-user scenario modelling.
And there’s plenty more where that came from in the development layer, all
paving the way for slicker modification and easier implementation.
What’s new with Microsoft Dynamics AX?
AX caters for very specific business needs by acquiring a number of industry
vertical solutions for customers in manufacturing, professional services and retail.
A Process Manufacturing solution provides tight integration of business
processes across discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing.
A Professional Services solution delivers a single system to manage projects
and resources, execute financial transactions and customer billing and match
resources with client assignments.
The most recent addition is the Retail solution providing an end-to-end
solution which includes store management with point of sale, merchandising
and other ERP capabilities.
The other significant product release for AX this year is a new two-tier ERP
connector which allows information process integration between headquarters
and subsidiary locations, and integration to their administrative SAP Business
Suite for:
Financial consolidation for better visibility
of financial performance across the
organisation
Inter-company supply chain integration
helps automate supply chain and order
processing locally and regionally
Plant automation for more accurate and
responsive manufacturing planning across
the organisation
Standardisation for better efficiency and
an end to disparate ERP solutions across
your subsidiaries
Not a lot of detail has been released for
AX 6, there is specific functionality relating
to Public Sector needs, including:
>> Integration with Microsoft Dynamics
CRM
>> Office integration with Tailored Role
Center Portals with performance
dashboards
>> Fund accounting, budgetary control,
encumbrance and pre-encumbrance
accounting with workflow
>> Travel expense management
>> Environmental sustainability dashboard
If you’d like to talk more about what’s
available now, and what’s in store for 2011,
drop me a line! nickj@intergen.co.nz
Nick Johnson is Intergen’s
Microsoft Dynamics Practice Lead.
N T Y F O U R >
N
M

6. >>6 < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> W I N D OWS P H O N E 7
During October Microsoft launched Windows Phone
7, its latest foray into the smartphone operating
system market. Microsoft has been developing
mobile operating systems for many years, although
its recent efforts have been widely described as
lacking. Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft’s highly
anticipated effort into making up this lost ground,
and initial reactions have been universally positive.
Make no mistake: Microsoft has got its work cut out for it. Windows Phone
7 is entering a competitive marketplace, dominated by Apple’s iPhone and,
increasingly, the Android platform from Google. Industry commentators have
doubted Microsoft’s ability to develop a compelling smartphone experience for
several years; it has lost valuable ground – and mindshare – when compared
to its competitors. Even Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has admitted that the
company missed “an entire development cycle” with its mobile platform.
With the evolution of the smartphone came an evolution in expectations:
consumers and business users alike now expect their smartphones to feature
multi-touch displays, a wide range of software applications, and a seamless
experience when it comes to finding and purchasing software.
With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has retained its traditional “software
platform” approach to attacking this market. Unlike Apple, for example,
which controls both the hardware and software experiences, Microsoft is
working with multiple hardware providers. Companies such as Dell, Samsung,
HTC and LG are all releasing Windows Phone 7 devices. This is a familiar
approach for Microsoft, who has shied away – aside from the failed Kin – from
creating the smartphone hardware itself. The company tries to specify robust
guidelines for the devices and their behaviour in order to create consistency
across its partners’ hardware designs. For users, this should provide the best
of both worlds: a consistent and familiar experience across devices, while
Windows Phone 7: Microsoft’s new mobile operating system.
giving hardware providers the opportunity to innovate. This mix has worked
successfully for Microsoft in the past, and is essentially the same approach
Google is taking with Android; the assumption being that more devices will
result in more customers and greater market share.
Where Microsoft has innovated is in its core software. The fluid user interface,
the “tiled” approach to accessing applications and receiving notifications
and updates, and the linkages to other parts of the Microsoft ecosystem –
including Office, Zune and Xbox – are genuinely innovative and represent
alternative ways of accessing applications and media. Indications are that
there will be several thousand applications available in the coming months,
and by leveraging the large development community, recognised development
tools and familiar programming languages, Microsoft is almost guaranteed to
get support from developers and software companies alike.
A marathon, not a sprint
In several years’ time we could look upon the release of Windows Phone 7 as a
watershed moment in the history of Microsoft – and the wider industry.
With Gartner estimating mobile phones will overtake PCs as the dominant
web access device worldwide by 2013, there is a significant opportunity for
Microsoft, Apple, Google, RIM (makers of the Blackberry) and others to grow
the market and carve out their own spaces; unlike the operating system space,
this is unlikely to be a “winner takes all” model.
There is also an acknowledgement that people are used to computing on the
go – these powerful devices provide capabilities unheard of a few years ago,
and allow people to work and play whenever and wherever they are. Rather
than use a PC or laptop, people are going to use their mobile device to access
email, social networks and software applications.
For Microsoft, this creates both challenges and opportunities. On the one
hand, the success of mobile devices could impact its traditional operating
system business. On the other, with the arrival of Windows Phone 7, it appears
well-placed to secure a respectable part of the mobility space. At the end of
the day, success will come down to software –
the experience of using the operating system,
and the applications that will be available for
it, both in terms of their quality and quantity.
With a strong development story, and an
enthusiastic partner network, Microsoft is well
positioned to drive results. And with a variety
of hardware partners in place already, the
signs are good that there will be a range of
interesting and innovative devices on offer –
now and in the future.
timh@intergen.co.nz
Tim Howell is Intergen’s Marketing Manager
U R >

7. >>7< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT SERVICES
How well is your IT infrastructure managed? Do you
know the current status of your physical and virtual
environments, client computers and devices?
Could your organisation benefit from self-managing, integrated and dynamic
systems where your IT professionals can optimise IT structures to reduce costs,
improve application availability, and enhance service delivery?
These questions are often at the forefront of every CIO’s mind. However, all too
often addressing these questions requires a matrix of complex multi-product
architectures that would daunt even the most experienced IT professionals.
How can Intergen help your organisation?
Intergen and Microsoft have partnered with a common goal
to invigorate the take-up of the Microsoft System Center
products within New Zealand. With Intergen’s recent
recruitment of Andrew Kosmadakis and Mark Fenwick,
along with existing Intergenite Harry Barton, Intergen
is committed to developing a new Infrastructure
Management service offering, solely dedicated to helping
your organisation manage its IT infrastructure with
increased control and staggering cost savings.
The Microsoft System Center product suite is an array of
powerful and integrated products that helps IT professionals
manage their physical and virtual environments throughout
their data centres, client computers, and devices. Microsoft
System Center provides a platform for managing your entire IT
environment end-to-end. Using these integrated and automated
management solutions, IT organisations can be more productive
service providers to their businesses.
Intergen has found that there are many organisations and
Government departments already partly or fully licensed to use the
System Center products, yet either they don’t realise, don’t know about the
power of System Center, or simply don’t have the expertise to implement the
System Center product suite.
In some cases we have found that organisations not only have the right to use
System Center, but have also purchased additional, more complicated products
that do not provide the same level of integration, consistency and extensibility.
What are the key benefits of Intergen’s Infrastructure
Management Service?
>> Solutions that integrate from desktop to data
centre
>> Products that manage your physical and
virtual IT environments
>> Solutions that provide knowledge-driven
management
>> Solid partnerships with Microsoft
>> Rapid results by capturing value out of
the box
With System Center Configuration Manager
Intergen can help you benefit from a
centralised management tool that is optimised
for Windows and extensible beyond, it is the
best choice for gaining enhanced insight into,
and control over, your IT systems. It empowers IT
professionals with functionality such as:
>> Operating System deployment (server and
desktop)
>> Application and Security update Deployment
>> Hardware and Software Inventory
>> Asset Management
>> Desired Configuration Management
>> Power Management
With increased complexity in our data centres
as we transition from physical to virtual
environments, we find IT infrastructures
housing multi-vendor virtualisation platforms,
each with their own management tools
and workflows. Intergen can offer you
comprehensive consulting and deployment
experience in System Center Virtual Machine
Manager, a centralised management point
for your virtual environment with the
ability to increase server utilisation, and
dynamically optimise resources across multiple
virtualisation platforms.
With over 300 management packs available
for different applications, operating systems
and devices ranging from servers to switches,
System Center Operations Manager is pivotal
to managing your IT infrastructure end-to-end.
Imagine being able to monitor, alert and
provide action according to the health,
performance and availability of your
systems across multiple hardware and
software platforms from one single product.
Talk to us about how we can help you realise
the power of centralised infrastructure
management.
markf@intergen.co.nz
andrewk@intergen.co.nz.
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Introducing an exciting new service offering from Intergen
– Infrastructure Management Services
Introducing Mark Fenwick and Andrew Kosmadakis

8. >>8 >> W E B S T R A T E G Y : U S E R T E S T I N G < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >
The truth about User Testing and other tales from
the trenches.
What is it?
User Testing is testing a website or application to see if it meets your business
objectives and the needs of your users.
In industry speak, User Testing (also UAT: User Acceptance Testing) can take
on a number of guises. Formal and informal. Qualitative and quantitative.
Face-to-face and remote. Or a combination of these. It always depends on
your project, your time constraints and, of course, your users.
Many big brands or big sites are testing on a daily basis. They will run what’s
known as ‘A/B Testing’ to rapidly test pages, paths, buttons, links, navigation,
headline copy etc. to make ongoing, incremental enhancements to their
website. This can be as granular as any User Interface element (e.g. a ‘Buy
Now’ button) and include: colour, size, location, feedback and so on. Or it can
be as large as a complete redesign.
There are also a bunch of ‘lab tools’ out there including things like retina
tracking (where users look), heat maps (aggregated behaviours), click paths
(where individuals actually click) and so on – many of these have been used
for decades. But as we begin to interact more via touch and gesture (as
opposed to point and click) these tools will continue to evolve.
Why do you do it?
We are all too close to our projects. All of us. Without exception. It doesn’t
matter if you are client-side or design/development-side or an independent
‘UX champion’. User Testing is the moment of truth when you realise that no
matter how great your project is, it can always be better. Always.
Users are brutally honest. They have no reason lie. If people love something,
they’ll tell you. Likewise, if they are confused or frustrated, they’ll let you
know. And you should be thankful. Now you have a chance to lick your
wounds, repair your ego and make things better.
“I’m sorry, they just didn’t get it.”
Who should be involved?
If you’re running face-to-face testing, it’s good to get at least four people to
facilitate and run the testing. Ideally, they should be from across the business
(and if they haven’t been involved in the project, that’s good too). Essentially,
this provides balance to the process and removes the human nuances and
elements of bias that we all bring to any project.
How many users do you need?
If you’re doing face-to-face testing, you need at least 12 users (for statistical
significance). Preferably 20. And 30 would be even better. Face-to-face testing
is more expensive, and more time consuming than using many of the online
tools that are readily available today – and even if you don’t do it all of the
time, you should do face-to-face testing at least some of the time.
If you’re running remote testing (using software), you can test a lot more
people and be really specific with what you test. Ideally, you should run a mix
of qualitative and quantitative analysis because what people say and what
they do are usually quite different. Also, you should try and collect anonymous
data (again, people will score and rate experiences very differently ‘on paper’
to how they do in person).
How often do you do it?
Do it as frequently as possible. Don’t disappear into a project for two years
and proudly emerge with a prototype that ‘just needs user validation’. Run
small, informal sessions with users throughout a project’s lifecycle. And make
sure the users are actually from your target audience and be really clear about
what you’re testing. It’s absolutely fundamental for the success of any project
to test while you design and while you develop.
The truth hurts
In my view, User Testing is absolutely the best part of working in this business. It can
be tough. Users do not care about your requirements, your software, how tight your
code is, how many designs you threw away, how many months you sweated and
argued over every detail; they just want to get stuff
done. If your users don’t get it, your website doesn’t
work. End of story. And they will compare your site
to others with far bigger budgets and resources
than you will ever have. That’s just how it is.
Finally … ‘fail fast, fail often’ …
This maxim has been tossed around software
development and entrepreneurial circles for a
while now and it’s still a really valid insight.
User Testing doesn’t have to be over-engineered.
If you are willing to listen, to make changes,
to throw things away and not fall in love with
your design or code, then you’re off to a good
start. Pick up the phone now, call your users and
watch them break your stuff – it’s hard and it
hurts, but it’s the only way to make things better.
gilesb@intergen.co.nz
F O U R >
Giles Brown is Intergen’s Web Strategist
The moral of the story: involve your user.

9. >>9< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> S P O T L I G H T O N R E T A I L
In the last issue of SMARTS I talked about
multichannel convergence being one of the top
three topics for retailers to address.
Since then I attended 2010 Global Consumer Trends, a seminar arranged by
the New Zealand Retail Association, and my thoughts have been confirmed:
e-retail, multichannel and convergence channel shopping have become centre
stage for the Retail industry. But what does this means to your business?
Consumers driving the retail agenda
Consumer confidence is increasing, but according to recent research by
Nielsen Consumer Confidence 2010, 44% are saving and 39% are paying
off debt. This is significant for retailers who are looking to drive up average
transaction value (ATV). For retailers to reach and maintain engagement with
the consumer, they’re looking outside the conventional bricks and mortar
stores and identifying e-retail opportunities. A recent survey conducted by
McKinsey, 2009, shows consumers are taking a multi-channelled approach
to research and shopping – 48% of consumers shop across more than two
channels, and 24% shop across three channels.
What are these channels, and how do I build engagement with
consumers in the right channel?
Monash University suggests that having visibility of product initiation
and direct design input creates and establishes loyalty with consumers.
Retailers are tailoring product based on actual consumer feedback prior
to manufacturing. Research also suggests that social media sites such as
Facebook are being used to establish reviews on product. Whilst social media
is being used as a new channel for product feedback, it’s not necessarily the
right place to sell product.
According to Nielsen’s 2010 Social Media report there has been a jump
in Facebook usage from 30% in 2007 to 82% in 2010. This has to be an
example of an unavoidable engagement channel for retailers?
Price remains a point of difference for consumers. More interestingly,
the presence of product and price comparison websites is taking off, for
example lasoo.co.nz. Close to two thirds of customers who visit the site and
subsequently purchase an item save approximately $20, while 15% save
between $101-$499.
What does this mean to the traditional bricks and mortar outlet?
I can speculate and find evidence that physical store formats are becoming
showcases for products. The dwell factor in stores could well be on the
increase, as a consumer who visits a physical outlet has made a conscious
decision based on product and price research from other channels. So in
essence they will be looking for a confirmation of their decision.
The ability to foster a connection between the web channel and the physical
store is becoming a growth strategy for retailers. The concept of ‘click’, buy
online and ‘collect’ in store is yet another customer offer that is present in
European and US markets in all product sectors. This puts the consumer back
in control of how, when and where they want to interact with a brand.
Intergen’s Retail vision
When pulling together our Retail Strategy
and service offer we looked at what was
important to Retailer and Wholesale
businesses. Without doubt, the consumer
remains at the forefront.
Our Retail vision involves looking at end
to end processes, from the view of the
customers, designing experiences around
how you want to serve your end consumer.
For example, it’s not as simple as saying
“I want to capture customer information
online” – that’s only the beginning. It’s
important to think: “Is this the correct place
to capture information? How will I use this
information? How can I use it in all my
channels?”
Working out how you serve your customer
will allow you to identify how staff and
supply chain partners’ processes need to
change. My advice is to start with the end
user experience in mind, road test it and
find the way to deliver it.
Intergen is now an active member of the
New Zealand Retailers Association.
danielm@intergen.co.nz
>> S P O
Spotlight on Retail: The consumer’s in control Daniel Munns is Intergen’s
Industry Lead - Retail Specialist

10. >>10 < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> S H A R E P O I N T 2 010 I N A C T I O N
Silver Fern Farms looks to SharePoint for its new
intranet and finds a place that 800 staff now
call home.
As New Zealand’s leading procurer, processor and
marketer of sheep, lamb, beef and venison, and with
more than 800 intranet-using staff in various roles
across the country, the time had come for a new intranet
for Silver Fern Farms.
Staff collaboration, document management and a more
complete and instant view of all areas of the business
was needed, with Business Intelligence and ease of use
and collaboration being key considerations for Silver
Fern Farms in building its intranet, HomeBlock – the
online embodiment of the place on the farm that a
farmer comes home to.
The previous intranet had been custom-developed in-house and
sat within the IT team. While it fulfilled its intended purpose, it required
several full-time resources to support it, it lacked flexibility and it couldn’t be
extended without significant effort. It became evident that the business was
outgrowing the existing platform.
Stewart Cowan, Silver Fern Farms’ Business Intelligence Manager, says:
“We’re a pretty spread out, geographically diverse company, and HomeBlock
– with its dozens of ‘paddocks’ (team collaboration sites) being built within
it – brings people together. And the fact that champions from within each
team can take full control of their own sites just goes to show how user-friendly
SharePoint is”.
All quiet on HomeBlock
>> INTERGENITE:
Steph O’Keefe
What do you do?
I’ve been with Intergen for just over
three years. I used to work in the Project
Management Office in Wellington and
manage project resourcing but have moved
to Auckland to become a Client Services
Manager in the Managed Services Team.
How do you make a difference?
I work closely with our sales and project
teams to ensure that we are providing an
efficient and proactive support service to
our customers. I also provide our Auckland
office with some great London banter!
What do you love about your job?
I love making a difference and working
with our clients and other Intergenites
to achieve the right results. I thrive on
the day-to-day challenges that I come up
against, and getting that positive result
makes it all the more rewarding.
A bit about yourself…
I was born in London and worked in the
Financial Services Sector in the big smoke
before I moved to New Zealand in 2007.
I’m an avid Chelsea fan and love football
in general, having played for Chelsea
Women’s FC and then really hitting the big
time when I got to Wellington and joined
North Wellington Ladies’ FC!
Silver Fern Farms was looking to select an industry standard solution, leveraging as much
functionality as they could out of the box and customising the rest. They wanted a solid
platform from which to create “one source of truth” and a go-to place for collaboration,
integration with other line-of-business applications, along with the ability to surface
business-wide information visually through a BI portal and to quickly produce a more
comprehensive and sophisticated suite of reports.
They selected SharePoint 2010 in beta state before the product
had officially been released to market because, as Stewart
explains, “The features, ease of use and the integration options
were all so much better than the existing 2007 version of
SharePoint, and on the BI side there was a far more evolved set of
features available to us.”
This decision meant that Silver Fern Farms was one of the first
organisations in New Zealand to have a fully-fledged SharePoint
2010 intranet. And in addition to being early adopters, the
quality of Silver Fern Farms’ solution was recognised by
Microsoft New Zealand with the accolade of Portals and
Collaboration Solution of the Year.
HomeBlock is now the first thing staff see when they start their computers every day,
and is central to all aspects of business.
Stewart sums up one of HomeBlock’s greatest wins: “It’s all power to the people now – no
more having to go cap-in-hand to IT. One of the benefits of SharePoint is that you can
address people’s concerns really quickly and easily – usually we can take on feedback and
turn changes around within a week.”
He says it’s been “quiet” since go-live, explaining: “People only tell you the bad stuff.
Going on that logic, we’ve definitely got a lot more happy people now!”

11. < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> P R O J E C T M A N A G E M E N T >>11
>> INTERGENITE:
Steve Sharpe
What do you do?
I’m a Senior DBA/Consultant – I deliver
quality SQL database solutions and
services to Intergen’s clients and provide
support on client engagements and
guidance to peers. My responsibilities also
include designing, installing, configuring
monitoring, testing, tuning and
troubleshooting SQL Server solutions.
How do you make a difference?
I spent six years in Strategic Outsourcing
for IBM Global Services, and have
extensive experience with MSSQL. I
help to ensure best practice production
implementation and supportability, as
well as performance, security and data
resilience strategies.
What do you love about your job?
I love problem solving and dealing with
challenges. Delivering solutions that meet
and exceed the clients’ expectations while
also being cost effective is my idea of job
satisfaction!
A bit about yourself
I am a film addict and enjoy watching
films in the cinema. My wife and I tend to
go every week and usually opt for the low-
budget films with a story rather than ones
that rely on CGI. My favourite cinemas
are the Penthouse in Brooklyn and the
Shoreline in Waikanae.
The fine art of Project
Management
Naomi reflects on the things she has seen help
projects succeed – and those which have contributed
to project failure – throughout her career in project
management.
What’s the function of a Project Management Office? What
difference does it make to an organisation?
A Global Project Management Survey in 2004 found that only
27% of the projects surveyed were completed successfully
(on time, within scope and on budget); the remaining 73%
were either cancelled or didn’t meet time, scope or budget
constraints. The difference a PMO makes is in making sure
that your projects aren’t amongst that 73%!
Other noticeable benefits of having an established PMO
include:
>> Cost savings through better resource management,
reducing project failures, finishing projects on time and budget
and seeing the anticipated project benefits actually come to
fruition
>> Customer satisfaction through projects that are successfully
delivered and achieve what they set out to
>> Consistency and professionalism through reusable processes
and tools
>> Increased skills and competencies through dedicated
training, development, coaching and support
>> Visibility of all projects in an organisation
>> Greater efficiency, control and focus
What common “mistakes” do you see happening on projects?
There are definitely common pitfalls to be avoided. These are probably the
ones I see the most often:
>> Poorly defined scope, scope management and lack of change control
>> Poorly defined requirements
>> Not understanding the reason for the project – what’s the business trying
to achieve?
>> Inadequate communication
>> Poor stakeholder buy in – lack of consultation with key project
stakeholders
>> Lack of project governance during project execution
>> Project risks not being actively managed
>> Unrealistic project estimates
>> Poor team engagement
What would your Top 10 Project Management tips be?
>> Know and understand the purpose of your project
>> Invest in planning your project – if you don’t start projects well, they never
finish well
>> Communicate, communicate, communicate!
>> Operate your project with complete transparency and visibility
>> Make sure your team is engaged and knows what’s required of them,
making sure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined
>> Spend time on project scheduling and tracking
>> Remember that an investment in project governance management isn’t a
fire extinguisher
>> Focus on active project governance, paying special attention to risks,
issues, schedule and budget management
>> Engage a strong and active project sponsor
>> Learn from your mistakes and take the lessons learnt with you – a mistake
is only a mistake if you make it twice
naomil@intergen.co.nz
Naomi Lind is Intergen’s Chief Projects Officer, responsible for Intergen’s Project
Management Office and the delivery of successful and consistently high
quality projects to our clients.

12. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT INTERGEN:
Auckland: +64 9 966 3070 info@intergen.co.nz
Wellington: +64 4 472 2021 www.intergen.co.nz
Christchurch: +64 3 964 0017
Dunedin: +64 3 477 5648
Sydney: +61 2 8211 0639 www.intergen.com.au
Perth: +61 8 9228 9990
< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F O U R >>> R E C O R D S M A N A G E M E N T
SharePoint has changed
the game regarding
document and content
management. You no
longer require a separate,
traditional document
management system.
You can achieve the
“holy grail” of good
document and
records management
without end users
needing to do
anything more than
their usual “save
as” from Office or
Outlook.
Imagine a colleague named
“Steve”. He creates a new report,
works on it with others, saves it
regularly, releases it for formal review
and approval, and publishes
the document for the wider
audience – in a library or to a
website. This is all pretty simple
and straightforward. Happy Steve.
Behind the scenes, SharePoint automatically assigns attributes to the
document. These include document type, location (in the library taxonomy
hierarchy), business classification, subject keywords, access rights and
permission levels, unique record ID, retention and disposal rules, version
control and the workflow to be used for the review and approval. This
rich metadata provides much improved “findability” and all round
better management of enterprise content.
“Katy” (another colleague) is looking for information to
support her project. She doesn’t know that Steve recently
created a report, so she doesn’t know to look for it. In the
past, she would have needed to know where to look or be
presented with hundreds of results from the search tool. This
time, she quickly narrows the search to a handful of likely
documents to find what she wants. Happy Katy.
Meanwhile, “Alex” the Records Manager has his own
views of all stored content, the ability to adjust any record
classifications, review and sentence records and generally
report a high rating for good recordkeeping. Happy Alex.
Last, but not least – “Tony” the Managing Director sees
everyone working more effectively, quickly and easily, finding
the right stuff that they need for their work, plus knowing that
the enterprise information store is well managed. Happy Tony.
Now all this is possible.
SharePoint takes care of Steve’s and Katy’s needs without them
knowing about the RecordPoint extension working “under the
covers”. Alex of course wants to ensure that good recordkeeping
practices are adhered to by staff, and he is very happy that this is
achieved as a by-product of Steve’s and Katy’s normal activities.
Records Management made easy with
SharePoint and RecordPoint
Tony sees it working well. Result: high adoption by end-users, greater volume and
quality of documents available and under good information management practices.
Happy everyone.
Intergen has partnered with RecordPoint and OnePlaceMail to provide full records
management solutions and services. RecordPoint is built on SharePoint extending
SharePoint’s document management strengths and simplicity with a rules engine that
automatically assigns business classification metadata and records policies to documents,
emails and scanned images.
Whether you are looking for improved operational performance through better
management of your documents or recordkeeping compliance, we can help you. With
Intergen’s “soup to nuts” services, you can ensure that your implemented solution
delivers your desired business outcomes.
If this strikes a chord with you and you want to find out more, either contact your
Intergen representative or contact me at steve.lapwood@intergen.co.nz.
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Steve Lapwood is a Senior Management Consultant in
Intergen’s Consulting and Architecture Services team.