The older version of Tsogo Sun Gaming’s websites were updated by the company’s online team via an online content management system (CMS) – but the rights to this CMS were held by an outside company. “This meant that we had no flexibility to make changes as and when we deemed them necessary,” says Jody Simpson, online analyst and webmaster at Tsogo Sun Gaming. “We had to wait on the supplier to implement changes – and it cost us significantly each time we wanted to change something.”

The websites for the different operations, located around South Africa, were all run separately and it was not possible to easily share the content that was common to all of them. This caused a duplication of costs, and slowed down the process of updating the various sites. The company sought a solution that would allow its online team to manage its various websites internally from one central location, that would afford it the flexibility and agility it sought to present a cohesive and fresh appearance in the online arena.

Tsogo Sun Gaming appointed Intervate, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with Content Management, Web Development, Business Intelligence, Portals and Collaboration, and Search competencies to implement a solution to meet its requirements.

“We evaluated the company’s needs, and identified SharePoint 2007 as the ideal platform for Tsogo Sun Gaming to build their various websites on,” says Steven Magid, information worker competency manager at Intervate. “It offers an integrated  platform to share content and federate search results across the site.”

Magid points out that SharePoint 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that provides comprehensive content management and enterprise search, facilitating information-sharing across boundaries. A platform on which to build and host websites is just one part of the SharePoint 2007 solution – and this is what he recommended for Tsogo Sun Gaming’s requirements.

“The company’s various sites are stored in one place, but can be accessed from the different locations, meaning that local content authors can edit the domains for which they are responsible,” he says. “The various teams can collaborate effectively, and can easily share vital information to make sure that the company’s online presence is consistent and effective.”

Simpson adds that moving over to SharePoint has enabled Tsogo Sun Gaming to measure the traffic on its sites far more effectively, enabling the company to track the performance of online campaigns. “I was amazed at how quickly our search engine rankings improved after we moved across to SharePoint Server 2007 and how our new sites quickly outranked the old ones.”

The transition from the company’s existing sites to the new versions on SharePoint was smooth, and was enhanced by the training that Intervate gave to the Tsogo Sun Gaming content editors. “Intervate’s excellent service has led us to investigate an ongoing SLA once we are out of our warranty period,” Simpson adds.

The framework that the Intervate team set up for Tsogo Sun Gaming allows the company to expand its use of SharePoint 2007 as its business needs evolves. “We are using one part of a far-reaching business content management solution that we hope to grow into. All our systems are on Microsoft platforms, and we see enormous growth potential for our relationship with the team at Intervate,” says Simpson. “Steven and his team customised the solution to our needs, taking particular note of our security concerns, and of the needs of each of the operations.”

“Even though the solution addresses the company’s security concerns, it still allows a tremendous amount of flexibility, and it is easy to add custom-built plug-ins, or functionality from elsewhere in the Internet, such as YouTube,” adds Magid.