UK property development company Argent expects to reduce
its physical storage needs by 10% through deploying a
web-basedinformation sharingportal.
Argent is re-developing 67 acres at King's Cross in London and
has increased its staff by 50% in the past year.
Filippo Popolo, IT manager at Argent, said that the portal will
allow the firm to digitise all documents, enabling it to grow
without requiring more office space. The increased efficiency would
also limit the number of additional support staff required to
support the company's growth, he said.
The company plans to manage the expected 20-fold increase in
data flow by completing its deployment of the portal software
Workspace from Union Square Software by May 2008.
The software will enable Argent to store all business-critical
information centrally and make it accessible to staff anywhere in
the world using a web browser.
"Having a good archive is important for every business to source
information, including e-mails, quickly and easily," said
Popolo.
He said any company could reduce legal risk by ensuring it had a
consistent way to capture information and was able to find crucial
documents when needed.
"The volume of information being generated and the way it is
stored should not be obstacles to its retrieval by anyone in the
organisation that needs it," said Popolo.
Argent chose Workspace because it was tailored to the
construction industry and will enable the company to organise its
information around projects.
"This makes it incredibly easy to find information and makes the
most sense to us because this is the way we would like our data to
be organised in the first place," said Popolo.
He said the software also had a better balance between intranet
and document management capabilities than the more general products
that were considered.