FB Rice, a leading provider of intellectual property (IP) services in the Asia Pacific region, has launched their new intranet on the Elcom Digital Employee Experience Platform. The intranet, aptly named Compass, helps team members easily navigate the vast pool of information, and work better together to enhance their service offering, while also promoting a culture of superior service, industry excellence and the best people, underpinning everything FB Rice does.
As a patent and trademark firm working with hundreds of local and international clients, FB Rice has accumulated significant client related and technical knowledge. However, the firm did not have a system that could store this knowledge in a way that could easily be found.
Judy Ryan, Intranet Project Manager at FB Rice explains, “The nature of our business is to rely heavily on emailing colleagues for information. Various email groups are in place, but with the high volume of emails, messaging is often overlooked. We have a system where we manage all our cases and associated files. However, because it's a typical filing system, we can’t create contextually relevant and user-friendly pages and communities around these files. We needed a repository to share and leverage knowledge, in an easy to use and visually attractive way. We also wanted to support the continuation of the collaborative culture at FB Rice. A new modern intranet would help improve internal communications and efficiency in the firm, while also fostering a sense of community among our staff who work across multiple offices.”
After a thorough search, FB Rice selected the Elcom Digital Employee Experience Platform. Elcom’s out-of-the-box intranet had all the modules FB Rice required, while offering the flexibility to personalise the design. Josh Anstey, Customer Solutions Director at Elcom, describes the process, “It was fantastic working with the FB Rice team. They had a clear vision on how they wanted to improve their employee experience, efficiency and access to information with the Elcom Platform. The FB Rice team was focused and committed to delivering a quality solution to empower and support its national and agile team members.”
Compass, the new intranet, provides timely and contextual information and communication, centrally housed for staff to access anywhere, at any time. This includes the various communities of practice, the FB Rice board, and other initiatives.
Judy Ryan further explains, “There is an increasing realisation by staff of Compass’ potential and how it can assist in the management of their accumulated knowledge for easy access to department resources. More and more staff are contacting the project to talk about how it can better work for their committees or technical departments. We are slowly building a database of information that is both easy to find, easy to read and visually attractive.”
Key benefits experienced by the FB Rice team:
- Streamlined knowledge management. The intranet is integral to knowledge management through improved access to and control of information, sharing of knowledge, and the connection between staff to drive improved practices. Departments can add information relevant to their technology and specialist area, such as a new Country and Jurisdiction area with content on patents, trademarks, designs, fees, charges and contacts for each country.
- Supports a single source of truth. Compass supports the idea of a single source of truth, so files can be uploaded in one place and then shared across multiple sections of the intranet. The homepage, for example, dynamically updates to display content from other sections including the latest news. Federated search also pulls in results from the FB Rice public website, so there is no need to double handle information.
- Improved communication and processes. Compass offers processes and workflows to enhance the service offering from FB Rice and provides a new, more efficient channel for communication. With information in one place staff do not have to rely on emailing colleagues. For example, Standing Instructions provides instructions on how to work with any given client on day-to-day and non-standardised transactions including contact and billing preferences. The main support areas that manage this content would normally spend valuable time sending out directions after someone requests it by email. There is now an easy place for people to access the information immediately without waiting for a response. If instructions need to be updated, staff can fill in an online form on Compass asking for it to be updated.
- Supports performance and development. During COVID-19, training was accessed at a higher degree than in the pre- COVID-19 era, and several staff members were engaged in training. With Compass, FB Rice staff can easily access training material. This includes past training presentations and webinar recordings, links, calendars, and other resources.
- Fosters a sense of community. From the first and initial contact with the organisation through to ongoing interaction - the tone of voice, imagery, content and business processes supported through the intranet - reflects and supports the FB Rice culture and external key messaging. The firm can now share the latest news, as well as celebrate the social aspects of the firm, in an easy to find and visually appealing way.
Read the full FB Rice Success Story here.
About FB Rice
FB Rice was established over 70 years ago, and to this day remains privately owned and is known as Australia’s leading independent intellectual property firm. As champions of innovation, the FB Rice team works with local and international clients seeking IP protection and strategy within Australia, New Zealand, SE Asia and across the globe. With offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Parramatta they pride themselves on offering clients a local touch, with global reach. The team is committed to supporting the Australian IP ecosystem and believes in the integral role IP plays in an economy. Their wide-ranging technical and industry specialists give practical advice by combining outstanding intellectual capability, creativity and commercial insight. Their clients include companies, research organisations and institutes, universities, startups, government bodies, law firms and overseas IP firms.
About Elcom
Elcom partners with organisations to build meaningful and productive intranets and digital workplaces that empower staff to perform their best, anywhere and on any device. Elcom’s out of the box intranet built on the Elcom Digital Employee Experience Platform comprises over 100 modules of functionality, together with multiple third-party connectors that can easily be activated depending on your organisation's requirements. The platform can also be extended for portals (board portal, client portal, member portal and supplier portal), and has a built-in learning management system for online training, eLearning, staff onboarding and compliance which includes tests, SCORM compliance and reporting.