Eurocash Intranet

Eurocash Group is Poland’s largest wholesale distributor of FMCG products (food and daily necessities), supporting the development of independent retailers in Poland for over 30 years. The company employs over 20,000 people and works with over 90,000 customers, of whom approximately 70,000 are local entrepreneurs operating retail stores.

We have been working for Eurocash for over 15 years, and in this case study we will talk about the Intranet implementation we carried out in 2009-2016.

In the process of building the Intranet assumptions, the key preparatory stages we went through were:

Step 1. Analyzing stakeholder expectations – in international organizations, defining the goals decision-makers want to achieve is always crucial. This step is crucial for the project’s success.
Step 2. Understanding the guidelines – changing the company’s business assumptions and the Product Owner’s expectations
Step 3. Process organization – an important element of cooperation was to develop the work process in such a way as to optimize the time spent on implementation
Step 4. Persona Analysis – developing personas, their needs and paths to reflect them in the intranet UX
Step 5. Functionality proposals – indicating solutions used in intranets around the world

The documentation preparation process included a series of workshops with the HR department and a multi-departmental team on the client’s side. The result was the development of a userflow along with a process description of individual features. Some of these features were later implemented as priority features, while the rest were considered development projects and mostly implemented during the intranet’s launch.

Key features described in userflow:

• Carpooling: a corporate car sharing module that allows Eurocash employees across Poland to travel together in company cars. In just the first year of implementation, it generated over PLN 400,000 in savings and had a significant positive impact on building relationships between employees within the organization.
• Fitness cards available online: a module enabling the acquisition of an Employee Fitness Card by completing an online form; thanks to this function, the speed of issuance has increased more than threefold.
• Calendar of important dates on the wall: a module presenting key dates for employees (modified by administrators with editing for authorized users, a new list of events sortable by date and category, a calendar with marked events on the main page)
• Contextual search engine on the intranet: search engine taking into account grammatical inflection, auto-suggestions (the user enters a term and a drop-down list of several most similar results appears), the list shows a fragment of the article with the search text in bold, the search engine also indexes the content of attachments in articles (doc, pdf, xls, ppt).
• Group organizational structure: Graphic and text presentation of three levels of structure, each cell can be assigned any number of people, person presentation: basic data, photo, scope of responsibilities.
• Getting started – a guide (e-learning course) for new employees: embedding the module in the intranet structure, implementing a page with a presentation of the e-learning mechanism and a link/links redirecting to an external application.
• Ordering equipment / first day: A form for reporting needs regarding the onboarding of a new employee: standardized needs in the form of a checklist regarding computer equipment, email accounts, workplace equipment, etc. Notification of reported needs sent to persons responsible for specific areas (a mechanism for sending different scopes of needs to different persons).
• Open training registration: a training list module enabling employee registration (each training had its own program, date, presenter, and location with a map). Trainings were searched by date and topic category. Periodic registration notifications were sent to the training department administrator.
• Online Business Trips: a module enabling the settlement of business trip expenses using a form, including the option to print the form or email it to a supervisor. Each Intranet user had their own list with cost aggregation.
• Employee Birthday Cards: A module that allows you to send a graphical card to another employee within the intranet. We developed numerous graphical templates, and the system allowed for quick card configuration and sending.
• Employee Polls: Polls based on closed cafeteria solutions. Polls were editable by the editor (functions for adding new, editing, and deleting polls, with the poll containing a title, content with a description, and any set of closed questions). The editor published the poll, specifying the start and end dates. After saving responses, the user would see a chart showing the results so far.
• Online Gadget Shop: A simple e-shop for purchasing company gadgets, integrated with payment and delivery systems. A unique additional “giveaway” mechanism allowed for free orders (e.g., distributing 100 of a given gadget to employees).
• Guest registration: The equivalent of an online check-in and check-out logbook, where the receptionist records people entering and leaving the premises. A new guest registration form, a guest list, a mechanism for marking a person as they leave, and email notifications to the person receiving the guest.
• Job Shadows: A form for individuals covered by the mechanism, including a form for reporting a specific person and the option to suggest another person. An additional information subpage with testimonials from individuals who have undergone this process.
• Mandatory online training system (e-learning): A mechanism for prepared knowledge slides (graphics, text, multimedia). A knowledge quiz with assigned points or a minimum threshold. The module included a data management panel: who passed the presentation and how many points they received.
• News Alerts: A news editing mechanism that allows editors to specify dates on which an alert should appear. An option whereby a news item, once checked by a user, is no longer displayed. News items could be assigned to all employees or to groups of employees (according to the user information layout).
• Resource Reservations: A module for managing resource lists managed by editors. Users could reserve resources for a given day and time range. Editors could reserve and cancel resources. The resource list was displayed, presenting “reservations” for a given day in the form of an extensive calendar.

The next step in the intranet development process was to develop clickable models (prototypes) in Figma, enabling the evaluation of individual functionalities.

During this stage, we developed over 100 unique views illustrating the processes taking place on the intranet.

From the perspective of managing such a complex website (with over 4,000 subpages), proper planning and organization of content development processes was crucial. To address these challenges, we developed and implemented a flexible model for building subpages from section types, based on Pattern Lab (the parent company’s visual system).

The complete pre-implementation documentation consisted of:

• System design – a virtual collection of graphic elements from which individual sections are then built
• Clickable mockups in Figma – a prototype with graphic designs of key views presenting the final look of the Intranet in 1:1
• Content specification – technical guidelines for the client’s team and developers regarding the construction of text containers (number of characters, their arrangement) and graphics and video (maximum file sizes, resolutions)

The implementation process, which lasted over 8 months, was divided into sprints (each sprint lasted 10 working days), including: 8 working days for developers, 2-4 hours for QA testing by the tester, 2-4 hours for corrections, and 4 hours for testing on the client’s side.

In each sprint, we planned a small period of time for corrections due to the relatively small scope of work; in case of faster execution, we started another sprint.

Management and progress control:

• We maintained an online document accessible to the client and the team, monitoring project progress.
• The client reviewed each sprint and provided feedback in sprint comments.
• Sprint closure, acceptance protocol, and work settlement were all handled remotely.
• After the implementation was complete, the testing phase was crucial (extended due to the importance of the intranet to the client).

• Multidisciplinary testing – initial tests on the test version conducted by selected people from various departments allowed for the detection of initial problems with the system
• Testing on a LIVE test group – after moving to production, releasing it to the public, and integrating it with the client’s internal systems, the intranet was released for use with a limited number of participants, limited to 100. After approximately 14 days, all minor issues were resolved.
• Full functionality for all employees – achieved after approximately 60 days of testing