Novell

Success Story

With employees spread across the world, dispersed teams needed a way to efficiently collaborate on joint projects. Using Novell® Teaming + Conferencing, the internal teams at Novell are dramatically improving the efficiency of collaboration and workflow processes, while greatly reducing administrative time and complexity.

Overview

Novell, Inc. delivers infrastructure software for the Open Enterprise. Novell is a leader in desktop to data center operating systems based on Linux* and the software required to secure and manage mixed IT environments. Novell helps customers around the world minimize cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth.

Challenge

As in many companies, Novell has internal teams comprised of employees spread out across multiple locations. The company’s Bid Management team works with nearly every internal organization to prepare Request for Proposal (RFP) response documents. Rather than coordinating the various components of an RFP using e-mail, the team wanted a centralized, Web-based workspace to gather, manage and store information used to process hundreds of RFP responses each year.

Novell solution

“With Novell Teaming + Conferencing, our team now has a secure and reliable virtual location to share information. We are no longer tracking documents with long e-mail strings or spreadsheets.”

Richard Carlson
Director
Novell Global Bid Management

The Novell Bid Management team had been evaluating several RFP management products before selecting Novell Teaming + Conferencing to improve collaboration among its large and dispersed RFP response teams.

“We needed something more than a product that would generate and spit out generic RFP documents,” said Richard Carlson, director of Global Bid Management at Novell. “Novell Teaming + Conferencing parallels our business processes with the ability to break down an RFP into components, assign components to individual team members, and to track and manage approvals.”

The Novell Bid Management team implemented Novell Teaming + Conferencing on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server. Virtual team members now access centralized online workspaces with integrated tools to manage RFP documents, view team calendars and task lists, and to participate in Web-based conference calls.

“Novell Teaming + Conferencing runs on any platform and the ramp-up time is quick,” said Steve Beus, program manager of Global Bid Management at Novell. “We can set up a new RFP workspace in five minutes.”

With document management and version control, the Bid Management team always has access to the most recent documents for every project. Built-in workflow capabilities speed up the approval process for each request, automatically alerting managers via e-mail when their approval is needed. Bid managers now have a single view of the approval status for every RFP component.

“With Novell Teaming + Conferencing, our team now has a secure and reliable virtual location to share information,” said Carlson. “We are no longer tracking documents with long e-mail strings or spreadsheets. Team members have access to all the information they need at any time and from any location.”

With a geographically dispersed group, team members often had to travel to be together for brainstorming or training sessions. Teams now schedule Web-based conference calls with slide shows and white boarding sessions that greatly simplify architecture discussions and training. Blogs also give team members across disparate locations and time zones an opportunity to discuss RFP details.

“Novell Teaming + Conferencing has turned social networking into a real technology and business advantage,” said Beus. “Having a centralized workspace with integrated tools has dramatically changed the way our team operates. We are far more connected and collaborative than ever before.”

The teaming workspace also serves as a repository for all RFP documents, maintaining a comprehensive archive of work that is available for use in other projects. This knowledge capture allows the team to produce RFP documents significantly faster without having to start from scratch each time.

In addition to internal use, the Bid Management team is planning to extend Novell Teaming + Conferencing to Novell partners, with secure access via the PartnerNet® portal. This approach will enable Novell partners to get all the information they need to create RFP responses with the right technical and business content.

Once the Novell IT staff implemented Novell Teaming + Conferencing, bid managers took over the management of their team workspaces to perform tasks such as creating virtual teams, defining workflows, adding file folders and setting up conference calls. Having a self-service model reduces the amount of IT support needed to keep each team productive.

Results

“Novell Teaming + Conferencing has turned social networking into a real technology and business advantage. Having a centralized workspace with integrated tools has dramatically changed the way our team operates. We are far more connected and collaborative than ever before.”

Steve Beus
Program Manager
Novell Global Bid Management

By implementing Novell Teaming + Conferencing, the Novell Bid Management team dramatically reduced the complexity of collaborating with employees in multiple locations. The team has reduced the project set-up time for RFPs by 50 percent and has reduced the workload to create a new RFP by 70 percent.

Bid managers now have a centralized view of all the components of an RFP and can track approval status. With fewer e-mails and document management issues, the team has increased overall efficiency by 60 percent.

“Novell Teaming + Conferencing allows us to make the best use of our time and resources,” said Carlson. “We look forward to extending this solution to our external partners. This product is really the future of teamwork for us at Novell.”

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