Drax Power
Intranet Refresh on Office 365
Drax Group plc is an innovative energy company that owns and operates the UK's largest power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, providing some 8& of the UK's electricity. Upstream, Drax Biomass Inc in the US operates wood pellet plants for the self-supply of renewable biomass.The group's retail arm, Haven Power, serves the electricity needs of a growing number of business customers. The group employs around 2,500 people, and their intranet was in need of a shake-up.
The Challenge
The Drax Group required an intranet refresh on their new Office 365 platform. They wanted to reflect the new group and business unit structure, and connect a global network of staff. Specifically, the new intranet needed to help Drax improve collaboration, communication and information sharing across and within business units, as well as provide an intuitive way to store and retrieve essential documents.
The Approach
ClerksWell delivered the intranet using our EasyShare solution, an intranet-in-a-box product built on Microsoft SharePoint Classic. As EasyShare has a series of pre-built parts and templates, it worked as an 'accelerator' to drastically reduce development time, helping Drax not only to hit the ground running but also to ensure that requirements are delivered within the timescales and budget.
By choosing a product with a proven track record, the Drax Group took advantage of the combined customer experience of EasyShare clients and the extensive testing of the solution from a technical and user experience perspective.
The project included training for 'intranet champions' as part of our standard project implementation.
The Impact
Alongside employee engagement, the Drax Group intranet now plays a crucial role in the dissemination of health and safety information across the group. At Drax Power, a weekly safety updated is uploaded to the intranet; at Drax Biomass, information is made available to employees through a health and safety online portal.
Not a company to stay still for long, Drax Group has been able to extend its intranet to new acquisitions including Opus Energy based in Oxford, Northampton and Cardiff. Opus Energy supplies electricity and gas to businesses and has partnerships with over 2,300 independent UK renewable energy generators, providing a market for excess power from energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro and anaerobic digestion.
