My name is Kathleen Galvin. I’ve been with CGI for 16+ years, working in several industries, geographies, and roles.I had no part in my company’s implementation of tibbrExcept that I am a delivery lead and a sales lead – a business user of the platform with very real, immediate, everyday needsI have to know where to find informationwho knows what across the companyour global story – generally and in its particulars, topic by topicI have to find talent when I need itfor help in business developmentfor execution in service delivery and consultingI often have to do this very fastI represent the demand side of the platformIn October 2011, CGI embarked on a new platform for collaborationIn August 2012, the environment changed dramatically, opportunities grew exponentially… and tibbr helped make it possible to deal with both
This integration meant more than a doubling of the size of the company.It added the full range of Logica’s resources of another large company to our mix – products, service, and thought leaders.All of this widely geographically distributed.You don’t grow by efficiencies in an acquisition like this: You grow by business value.CGI at a GlanceLargest IT Services firm in Canada4th in North America7th in the world$4.2 billion in revenue125 offices in 20 countriesLogica at a GlanceHead office in London, UKLargest in Sweden2nd in Northern Europe4th in France5th in Benelux$6.2 billion in revenue~200 offices in 43 countriesCGI Consolidated$10.4 billion in revenuePresence in 43 countries
Success in our case would mean rapid and effective GLOBAL INTEGRATION spurred by strong VIRTUAL COLLABORATION.
It’s hard to take a formal family portrait in Singapore with members abroad. NY-based photographer John Clang projected Skype images and photographed callers with their kin. He tried it with his own family, then used the Internet, embassies, and referrals to find other families with members in Singapore and abroad. It’s a good analogy for the story I want to tell. I’m going to set this up as a three-stage model:EXPLORING, ADOPTING, COLLABORATING.CGI needed to tap its collaboration and networking tools to build “virtual family photos” of our member base – across our geographies, capturing members with common interests, specializations, and experience.Summaries prompt awareness and corrections (“You forgot us”). They also bring us together.CGI found Stage 1 was met with both tentativeness and eagerness – as well as the early judgment as to the efficacy of the tool (its performance, accessibility, intuitiveness, and value).I’m going to offer a case study – picking one domain by way of example to demonstrate what we experienced in integrating social business tools.
We used these tools for welcoming our new colleaguesGetting orientedBuilding member- initiated communitiesGaining exposure and learning about what new offerings were available to usIt was unstructured and openQuestions were asked and answeredPosts drew notice around the worldHere’s how it played out in the Agile context…
In Stage 2: ADOPTION we found our work involved drawing members into the mediumFinding them where they were in disparate social business exchanges across Xing, LinkedIn, Yammer, Twitter, Facebook…Pulling together viewsLooking for opportunitiesIt requires active leadership. We formulated roles – community managers, subject owners – and change management activities.Mostly, we sought to add business value: to give members information they couldn’t get elsewhere, to make it worth their while engaging.
We found it necessary as we matured to integrate a library/repository function for structured document storage and sharing – with QA and controls in placeWe introduced a SharePoint-based content repository in CynerGI 2.0We cycle back through the ADOPTION phase subject by subject, domain by domainWe are refining group hierarchies and structures (e.g., swapping Hudson Jenkins out of Agile Development and under Java Development)We are beginning to see material impacts on our ability to respond quickly to RFIs and RFPs, to share information, and to map the lay of the land across a quite broad CGI landscape
In the end our aim is to equip our members with the information and contacts they need to be successful in serving CGI’s clientsTo make them network literateWe’re continuing to learn from our implementation of tibbr’s Social Business tools within CGI and in client engagements, leveraging our experience in our client base as regards:Technology deploymentStrategy Change managementDigital enterpriseMy message is that tibbr (in our case CynerGI) isn’t about KM deployment or a tool deployment. It’s about supporting the work we do and the clients we serve.