Industry

Technology Consulting, Outsourcing Services

Platform

Enterprise Systems Integration

Solution

User Centered Employee Portal

Cognizant is an information technology (IT), consulting and business process outsourcing services firm. They have revenues of more than $2.8 billion, employ approximately 68,000 people, and have a presence in more than 21 countries.

Limina was brought in to help a senior-level executive team define a user experience strategy and build a prototype demonstrating a new vision for their internal business management systems. The goal was to define a unified system which would serve as a touch-point for all employees. Key aspects of this engagement included defining a new concept based on integrated simplicity which shifted the system design from a technology and business process approach toward a user goal-oriented, workspaces approach (e.g., I have problem X, here is where I go to solve it). We created a consistent user experience for their enterprise framework that hosts global business management systems including intranet, KM, HR, CRM, and ERP systems, and we created a strategy for integrating social web technologies to enhance productivity, knowledge management, and build their community.

THE CHALLENGE

Cognizant is large globally distributed consultancy that manages business operations and client service teams across a diverse spectrum of cultures, legal frameworks, languages, infrastructures and many more nuances dictated and influenced by the context of their locations.

Additionally, many of their business management systems we developed in-house and not deployed across the organization.  This lead to a state of fragmentation, duplication, and general confusion on access, permissions, data integration, process and protocols as employees joined teams in different parts of the world.

Our challenge was to create unified employee portal which employees would utilize to manage their day to day tasks, monitor project status, operational, HR or other internal related requirements and milestones as well as to build better culture and global socialization all while managing operations and organizational operation across the globe.

OBSERVE & ANALYZE

Limina conducted an international user research program to discover operational, managerial, team and employee pain points across the organization, alongside a robust business process optimization effort.  We looked at “life events” as they occur at the employee view, project management and team view and business management and operational view.

This unique “business ethnography” approach lead us to the conclusion that the portal should roll out to new employees as they are on-boarded to the organization, as they complete their paperwork, through joining project teams, managing travel and expenses, and joining communities of practice and building subject matter expertise.

  • Business Competitive Analysis
  • User Research
  • UX Strategy
  • Content Type Identification
  • Use Case

ENVISION & DESIGN

After setting the vision and the user experience goals for OneCognizant, our first task was to design a variety of methods for integrating with the spectrum of 3rd party and internal applications, work-spaces, data entry and repository interfaces all rolled up to a task management and internal social networking dashboard.
Our vision was articulated through a series user stories which encompassed both on and offline experiences that tied the user back to the OneCognizant portal.  We told the story of employees joining the organization and building affinity within the organization as well as joining a variety of globally distributed teams and the information spaces to accommodate their transition and collaboration.

  • Social Intranet Design
  • Information Architecture
  • Content Design
  • Taxonomy
  • Persona Development

EVALUATE & REFINE

Given the ambition and robustness of the system framework, it was determined that Cognizant would build out the design in phases leveraging enterprise technologies as the scaffold.  Our team had been routinely engaged to review and modify implementations of the system as it was developed.

THE SOLUTION

This effort culminated with a presentation to the senior executive team. The vision solicited approval for a system‐wide overhaul of their internal business management systems. The system value was easily recognized and supported by senior management within the organization. Cognizant is currently moving forward with implementing this vision.