Country or Region: United States Industry: Financial Client Profile: Fairfield Greenwich Group (FGG) is a leading alternative asset investment specialist. FGG's mission is to offer their clients superior hedge funds and related products with a high level of client service and support. Throughout its history, the firm has internally managed its own hedge funds and selectively identified external managers for a limited number of close relationships. Business Situation: FGG wanted to refine its information management processes to improve the information flow between its staff and members. Solution: FAI Consulting deployed Microsoft Windows SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services to provide employees with team collaboration and faster access to the information they need Benefits Created a complete view of the business Put relevant information at the employee’s fingertips. Shared knowledge across the organization Found and made the most of the company’s intellectual capital Created portal pages for people, information, and the organization Automated business processes Speed adoption by using familiar interfaces and toolses instantaneous and remote access to all project documents Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Microsoft Windows SharePoint Portal Server is a collection of services for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 that you can use to create team-oriented Web sites to share information and foster collaboration with other users on documents. You can also use Windows SharePoint Services as a development platform for creating collaboration and information-sharing applications.

Fairfield Greenwich Group
New York City based Fairfield Greenwich Group is a leading asset management firm. The organization wanted to improve its data management processes to increase communication between its employees. Document storage and mailing was unstructured and inefficient, with large email attachments clogging network connections. The latest documents in file folders were difficult to find, and structured authorization to file folders was impossible to maintain. To solve the problem, FGG utilized Microsoft Windows SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services to enable document management and work flow automation. The workflow automation has resulted in a substantial increase in productivity.

Situation
Prior to implementing the document management capabilities that Sharepoint provides FFG stored all of their files on their network common drive. This led to a “wild west” environment in which version control, structural hierarchy or document status. The result was that collaboration was labor intensive, with constant follow up with email and phone calls to users, with the constant follow up questions of “Where are you on this document”, “Who’s working on this?”, “Has this been approved?”

On a technical stand point, there were concerns that their email Exchange server was hammered daily with large file attachments and the network drive had become unmanageable. It was felt that better tracking of document life cycles for management review, along with collaborated beyond email was required.

Solution
By incorporating workflow elements to Sharepoint, there is now the ability to keep content in a single place and the familiar What, Who, When questions of document collaboration are now addressed without adding a layer of administration to the process.

The deployed solution provided the following features:

• Check in/checkout ability.
• Email assignment of documents, so the content remains in a single location.
• Document status, version control, and work flow model Û A security model for final approval.
• Final notification to team members
• Team Site areas for collaboration

Added Value

Through the use of FAI's solution, FGG was able to develop an intelligent portal that seamlessly connected users, teams, and knowledge so that people could take advantage of relevant information across business processes to help them work more efficiently. SharePoint Portal Server provided an enterprise business solution that integrated information from various systems into one solution.

The portal facilitated end-to-end collaboration by enabling aggregation, organization, and search capabilities for people, teams, and information. Users could find relevant information quickly through customization and personalization of portal content and layout, as well as by audience targeting. The solution allowed them to put information to work, connect collaborative people, and target information to be more productive.