1. Microsoft Office System
Customer Solution Case Study
Professional Services Firm Maximizes
Knowledge Sharing with Collaborative Intranet
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Professional services—
Management services
Customer Profile
With roughly 350 employees and 13 offices
in five countries, Oliver Wyman –
Delta Organization & Leadership is a lead-
ing consulting firm that combines deep
industry knowledge with specialized
expertise in organizational transformation
and leadership development.
Business Situation
The firm’s intellectual property was
previously split among several disparate
intranet systems, which inhibited know-
ledge access, sharing, and reuse.
Solution
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership established a cohesive intranet
using Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server
2007, enabling collaborative content devel-
opment, information reuse, and enterprise
search.
Benefits
Improved workforce productivity and
collaboration
Better business efficiency
Enhanced knowledge management and
security
“Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 and other
Microsoft technologies, we are now able to focus on
our content instead of the software tools to manage
it.”
Bill Leo, Director and Chief Information Officer, Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization & Leadership
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization & Leadership, a global
consulting firm, has intellectual property that was previously
dispersed among multiple hard-to-access intranet systems.
Consequently, the firm’s consultants and business users had
difficulty finding and using information for new business proposals
and client projects. In fact, they often were forced to re-create what
already existed. To improve information access, sharing, and reuse,
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization & Leadership established a
cohesive intranet using Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.
The easy-to-use intranet facilitates collaborative content
development, information reuse, and enterprise search, and has
improved the productivity of, and collaboration among, the
workforce. The solution has also created new business efficiencies
and advanced the firm’s knowledge management and security
capabilities.

2. Situation
As a leading consulting firm, Oliver Wyman –
Delta Organization & Leadership combines
deep industry knowledge with specialized
expertise in organizational transformation
and leadership development. A staff of 350
can be found in and around 13 cities in five
countries worldwide, splitting time between
the firm’s offices and customer sites. To stay
competitive, its consultants must be able to
quickly develop new business proposals,
assemble project teams, and deliver best
practice services to its clients.
“We have consultants spread around the
world,” says Bill Leo, Director and Chief
Information Officer of Oliver Wyman – Delta
Organization & Leadership. “It can be difficult
keeping everything and everyone connected.”
In addition to supporting a widespread and
largely mobile workforce, the firm struggled to
harness and maximize its intellectual prop-
erty. While the content for each of its client
projects is customized, the core knowledge is
proprietary to the firm. The ability to access
and use the latest versions of intellectual
content, which evolves with time and
experience, frees the firm’s consultants to
dedicate more time and energy to serving
client needs and creating new knowledge
capital.
“We’re always seeking to make the most of
our enterprise knowledge base, while
meticulously guarding confidential client
information,” says Leo. “By improving the use
of our content and best practices, we can
enhance our business agility and bring our
full intellectual muscle to each client project.”
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership’s intellectual property was
previously spread among multiple knowledge-
management repositories and accessed via
several intranets built on IBM Lotus Notes
and Lotus Domino software. The intranets
were specific to business function and
dedicated to marketing, finance, human
resources, and information technology (IT)
teams. Consultants and business users
would submit documentation related to
proposals, client work, and research to
multiple individuals. These administrators,
dedicated to knowledge-management tasks,
would vet and post the information to the
most appropriate intranet.
The firm’s intellectual property was therefore
split among data repositories and intranet
sites, which limited access, sharing, and
reuse. Newly acquired companies brought
with them their own knowledge management
systems that had to be integrated with
already disparate systems, further fragment-
ing the firm’s knowledge base. Moreover, the
software tools used to retrieve information
had been customized to the point where they
were difficult to learn and operate.
“Our data was in various locations and there
was no consistency. Also, the Lotus products
were difficult to manage for our IT team and
cumbersome to use for our consultants,
especially those operating at customer sites,”
says Leo. “Needless to say, we weren’t taking
full advantage of our information resources,
and it was clear we needed to revamp our
knowledge environment.”
Solution
To improve intellectual property access,
sharing, and reuse, Oliver Wyman – Delta
Organization & Leadership created the
Knowledge and Insight Marketplace, better
known as KIM. Built using Microsoft® Office
SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft .NET
Framework version 3.0, KIM is a cohesive
intranet for use by all employees, from
consultants and business users to admini-
strative representatives and executives. It
ties into back-end data repositories using
Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 database
“We are no longer re-
creating the wheel every
time we generate a
proposal or engage in a
client delivery project.
Our consultants can tap
the historical knowledge
of the entire firm.”
Bill Leo, Director and Chief Information
Officer, Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership

3. software and replaces the firm’s former
Lotus Domino–based intranet solutions.
Employees access KIM through a Web
browser or a direct link found in the firm’s
Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging
and collaboration client software, which has
replaced its Lotus Notes program. Users can
retrieve and search for information using key
words or several general categories, including
pitch library, tools and models, marketing
materials, client deliverables, and content
offerings.
Instead of sending content to multiple
knowledge-management administrators,
employees now post intellectual property to
the firm’s knowledge base themselves. Using
KIM, they fill out an online form that indicates
whether the documentation is considered
“best practice” or “client confidential.” Best
practices are automatically made available to
all users via KIM’s search engine, while
client-confidential information is limited to
those with authorization, such as the
associated project team.
To facilitate and ease the document upload
process for users, KIM employs Office
SharePoint Server 2007 templates that make
it simple to create, edit, and link an individual
Web page. Also, the firm is taking advantage
of the blog capabilities of Windows® Share-
Point Services 3.0 to share interesting
articles and highlight newly created intellec-
tual property and uploaded documentation.
Benefits
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership’s new Knowledge and Insight
Marketplace enables collaborative content
development, information reuse, and enter-
prise search. In doing so, it has improved the
productivity of, and collaboration among,
consultants and business users, created new
business efficiencies, and enhanced the
firm’s knowledge-management and security
capabilities.
Improved Productivity and Collaboration
Because KIM provides a single Office
SharePoint Server–based repository for all of
the firm’s intellectual property, employees are
now much more productive. Consultants and
business users spend less time searching for
best practice content and don’t waste time
developing materials that already exist.
Instead, they are able to focus on specific
client project requirements and new business
initiatives.
“We are no longer re-creating the wheel every
time we generate a proposal or engage in a
client delivery project,” says Leo. “Our
consultants can tap the historical knowledge
of the entire firm to deliver exceptional
service and dedicate themselves to the
unique needs of each client.”
KIM is also extremely easy to access and use.
Whereas the firm’s former intranets were
difficult to access—especially for consultants
stationed at customer sites—KIM can be used
Figure 1. Oliver Wyman – Delta
Organization & Leadership’s
Knowledge and Insight
Marketplace (KIM) can be
used from any Web browser
or through Office Outlook
2003 desktop software.

4. from any Web browser or through Office
Outlook 2003 software on each desktop.
According to firm leaders, the solution’s
accessibility and ease of use have fostered
participation and collaboration among the
firm’s workforce.
“KIM looks and feels more like an interactive
Web site than a database, and our users
have quickly figured out how to access
information and contribute to the knowledge
base,” says Christina Mott, Director of the
firm’s Solution Development Team. “We have
put the technology in the hands of our
knowledge workers and enabled them to
access, create, and share intellectual
property. They’ve really embraced it, and our
workforce is collaborating more than ever
before.”
Better Business Efficiency
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership has also realized several busi-
ness efficiencies with KIM. Because it is just
as easy for consultants and business users to
upload newly acquired knowledge and con-
tent directly to KIM as it is to e-mail this
information to someone, there is no longer a
need for dedicated knowledge-management
administrators. The firm has redirected those
individuals to other projects to reduce
knowledge-management administration
costs.
The initial training burden for new employees
has also reduced. “Frankly, we don’t have to
train people how to use KIM. It is remarkably
intuitive, and our users immediately under-
stand how to search, browse, and upload
information,” says Mott. “We do, however,
point new employees to specific areas in KIM
so that they can get immersed in the knowl-
edge and insights that make us unique.”
Enhanced Knowledge Management and
Security
Because its intellectual property is no longer
splintered among several intranet systems,
Oliver Wyman – Delta Organization &
Leadership has been able to enhance its
knowledge-management capabilities.
“Now that our intellectual property is better
integrated and more accessible, we’re
learning new ways to take advantage of it,”
says Mott. “Office SharePoint Server 2007 is
very flexible and will allow us to fine-tune KIM
over time to maximize our information
resources.”
The firm is currently taking advantage of
Office SharePoint Server 2007 reporting
capabilities to evaluate which documents are
uploaded and accessed more than others.
This will enable continual refinement of the
search and information delivery features of
KIM.
In addition to providing advanced knowledge-
management capabilities, the solution has
bolstered the firm’s information security.
Although intellectual property is more
accessible than in the past, documents
labeled “confidential” upon upload are visible
only to authorized users. This helps protect
sensitive information and reduces the risk of
accidentally misusing it.
“Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 and
other Microsoft technologies, we are now
able to focus on our content instead of the
software tools to manage it,” says Leo.
“We’re producing better proposals, our
workforce is more efficient, and the
collaborative use of our intellectual property
has had an impact on our consultants’
productivity.”
“Now that our
intellectual property is
better integrated and
more accessible, we’re
learning new ways to
take advantage of it.”
Christina Mott, Director, Solution
Development Team, Oliver Wyman – Delta
Organization & Leadership

5. Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business
world’s chosen environment for information
work, providing the programs, servers, and
services that help you succeed by
transforming information into impact.
For more information about the Microsoft
Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office
For More Information
For 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 who are deaf or hard-of-
hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in
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Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Oliver Wyman
– Delta Organization & Leadership
products and services, call (866) 909-
8239 or visit the Web site at:
www.oliverwyman.com
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published July 2008
Software and Services
Microsoft Office System
− Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Technologies
− Microsoft .NET Framework
− Windows SharePoint Services