KMWorld 2007 Promise and Reality Awards finalists' showcase: Ernst & Young

Streamlining Access to Key Resources
Ernst & Young was becoming a victim of its own success. Employees had access to a multitude of resources and multiple ways to access the resources. It was enough to make heads spin!

To help make our professionals’ work lives easier, we streamlined access to resources by redesigning the EY Home Page, our Web-based intranet. We invested in a more robust "portal" infrastructure, designed to provide efficient and easy access to key resources most likely to be used on a daily basis, and organized into relevant categories that resonated with how our professionals work. A prominently positioned search capability became available on the main page, as did an area highlighting compliance notifications so users could quickly respond to such actions and requests. A top navigation menu allowed users to access all resources available on a particular category, but the main portion of the home page highlighted those things deemed most relevant to the user. The EY Home Page also provided the ability for some individual customization to make the experience more functional.

User feedback was overwhelmingly positive and usability tests show that average task completion was cut in half. Through ongoing governance of the home page and a schedule of continuous improvements, we are working to keep the home page relevant and increase our professionals’ productivity by allowing them to more easily find the right resources and share information with colleagues, thereby learning from each other and saving time on client projects.

Ernst & Young
5 Times Square
New York, NY 10036

Phone: 212.773.3000
E-mail: Center_for_Business_ Knowledge@ey.com
Web: www.ey.com