About Esmerk
Since its foundation in 1975, Esmerk has been supplying senior executives and decision-makers in leading international companies.
Esmerk has tens of thousands of end-users throughout the world, being serviced by a staff of almost 200 in a network of 8 subsidiaries. Our multicultural and multilingual staff monitors the business press, periodicals, local newspapers and corporate press releases from over 130 countries and over 30 languages including Chinese and Russian. News articles are abstracted and translated into English.
Approach
Esmerk operates 7 global offices spanning across Europe and Asia, and knowledge management became difficult across United Kingdom, Sweden, Finalnd, France, Germany, Russia and Malaysia. According to Robert Bigg, IT Director at Esmerk, “We’ve always had an island-based system, operating independently and communicating by email. Particularly when you have small, distributed offices, we have run effectively what is an extranet, but made it our intranet. We are constantly trying to improve communication and collaboration between offices.”
Solution
Describing the evaluation process, Robert Bigg reported, “What we were looking for was to replace the static intranet process with something more collaborative. People used to put together a page, and ask the IT Department to post it to the Intranet. Instead, we wanted to provide some content management type features so people could produce their own material without us getting involved. It was important to us to have a place where people could post a comment instead of just post the content.”
Results
Today, Esmerk is has deployed Near-Time to all 180 employees of the company. The entire global staff enjoys OnDemand availability and the ability to work across time zones. There was a rapid initial adoption among the Esmerk staff, according to Bigg. “I think its because the kind of various views that you can construct. All the content is modifiable and searchable. It is much easier to discover the content. You can see what has changed. ‘What’s new in your spaces’ is gives users a heads up to what material has been posted and what’s changed.”
“We’ve got fewer small offices than we did a few years ago. Some of the smaller offices feel more involved and more in touch with people.” Bigg continued. For example, “The offices in the far east are winding up their day by the time we in the UK are starting off. The element, as your name suggests, near time, is more applicable than most real time tools.”
 BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina
Historically, BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) had primarily communicated with client stakeholders via postal or e-mail delivery. However, about six months ago, the company decided to try Near-Time as a way of collaborating with clients and multiple stakeholders. The company is leveraging several private Near-Time spaces to expand external collaboration among multiple client stakeholders. The Near-Time solution allows BCBSNC clients, client stakeholders and teams to work together more quickly, easily and effectively.
“Near-Time facilitates improved collaboration with both existing customers and prospects throughout the client life cycle,” remarked Mike Smith, Director of National Accounts for BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina.
 Nerac: Collaboration Enabling Customer Intimacy
Nerac, a research and advisory firm for companies developing innovative products and technologies, recently adopted Near-Time to help launch their Collaborative Research Environment (CRE). CRE provides a platform for Nerac clients to engage with research analysts on custom briefing topics, share materials and better leverage the portfolio of Nerac’s services. Nerac’s Advisory Services site, also powered by Near-Time, is designed to enable teams to collaborate on report writing.
“We had been looking for the right Wiki product for several years when we found Near-Time. We selected the Near-Time platform because it works well in a variety of client environments, is quick and easy to get up and running for our clients—and is intuitive,” said Mike Mahoney, Director of Business Development for Nerac.
 NetScout Systems: Creating Valuable Customer Communities
NetScout Systems, (NASDAQ: NTCT), the industry pacesetter for advanced network and assurance solutions, is now using Near-Time to communicate with its over 1600-member NetScout User Forum (NUF) with an eye towards innovation through community collaboration. NetScout has implemented Near-Time to launch a wiki as well as a user forum blog, at www.NUFBlog.com.
“NUFBlog is a collaborative space where users can talk to each other, as well as to key NetScout experts, to share best practices and product innovation ideas,” noted Dave Sciuto, NetScout Community Manager for NetScout Systems. “It is currently being leveraged to develop agenda ideas for our upcoming NUF Conference."
Read about how NetScout uses Near-Time to shorten their sales cycle.
 BeneFacio Inc: Building Out For the Future
Retirement benefits administration company BeneFacio Inc has been using Near-Time as a tool to improve both internal efficiencies and client based communication. BeneFacio is so pleased with the platform that it plans to accelerate its external customer deployment and is also in the process of migrating its web site to Near-Time.
“Our company leverages a significant number of remote resources, and Near-Time’s hosted architecture dramatically simplifies the challenges of supplying those resources with the tools they need to be effective,” said Stacy Kenworthy, Chief Technology Officer for BeneFacio Inc. “Near-Time has also allowed us to store large amounts of historical data online and to be very selective about granting user access to the content. The rich feature set of the solution has freed up our resources and allowed us to focus on what matters most to us: delivering value to our clients.”
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