Enterprise Content Management Business Case

							                                              Microsoft Customer Solution
                                              Manufacturing Industry Case Study




                                              Energy Firm Uses Content Management to
                                              Connect People to Information and Expertise



                                              ―[Our enterprise content management solution] helps
Customer: Marathon Oil Corporation
Web Site: www.marathon.com                    us find the information that we need to do our jobs or,
Customer Size: 30,000 employees
Country or Region: United States
                                              if it doesn‘t exist, helps us find the people who know.‖
Industry: Manufacturing—Oil and gas                      Reid Smith, Enterprise Content Management Director, Marathon Oil Corporation
Partner: Gimmal Group                         Marathon Oil Corporation found itself managing a mountain of
Partner Web Site: www.gimmal.com
                                              information that was difficult to search and expensive to
Customer Profile                              maintain. So the company created an enterprise content
Houston, Texas–based Marathon Oil
Corporation is an international integrated    management team and implemented a solution based on
energy company engaged in exploration         Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that employees can use
and production; oil sands mining;
integrated gas; and refining, marketing,      to find and share information and expertise. Marathon has
and transportation.                           slowed the rate of information growth and can now better meet
Software and Services                         operational, legal, and regulatory requirements.
 Microsoft Office
  − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server        Business Needs                                 accumulated nearly 400 terabytes of data;
    2007                                      Oil and gas producers face multiple            left unchecked, the mountain of
                                              challenges today: more restricted access       information was expected to double every
                                              to oil and gas resources, significant price    18 months. This information was stored in
                                              volatility, a changing work force, increased   e-mail inboxes and folders, Web sites and
                                              regulations, and heightened concern            Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server
                                              about climate change. To better compete        2003 sites, file shares, individual PCs,
                                              in this tough environment, Marathon Oil        removable media, and other electronic
                                              Corporation, an integrated energy              and physical storage repositories.
                                              company based in Houston, Texas, sought
                                              to drive costs and inefficiencies out of its   Marathon executives recognized the need
                                              business by better managing one of its         for increased focus on consistent records
                                              most important assets—information.             management practices so that out-of-date
                                                                                             information could be purged with
                                              Marathon is the fourth-largest integrated      assurance that legal and regulatory
                                              oil company based in the United States,        requirements were honored.
For more information about other              according to Petroleum Intelligence
Microsoft customer successes, please visit:
                                              Weekly. In running its global business,        Marathon also saw opportunities to
www.microsoft.com/casestudies
                                              Marathon estimated that it had                 improve employee productivity and
effectiveness. ―Employees spent a good deal                         displaying company and industry news,           Faster location of information.
of time searching for, validating, or re-                           key business indicators, and links to            Marathon now has a central repository
creating information to ensure that their                           enterprise information sources.                  of information from which employees
decisions were based on the best                                    Information is filtered and presented            can make sound decisions. ―MaraView
information,‖ says Reid Smith, Enterprise                           based on logon credentials to meet the           helps us find the information that we
Content Management Director for                                     needs of employees and contractors.              need to do our jobs or, if it doesn‘t exist,
Marathon Oil Corporation. ―One senior                                                                                helps us find the people who know,‖
manager told me, ‗I want half the time of                          TeamView sites provide company                   says Smith. ―Also, shining a light on our
my engineers back.‘‖                                                teams with publishing sites or private           information stores reveals if we have
                                                                    online collaboration sites to upload,            inconsistent, redundant, and out-of-
Solution                                                            store, share, and refine project data,           date information, which enables us to fix
These challenges motivated Marathon to                              schedules, procedures, and so forth.             these problems, makes our searches
launch an enterprise content management                             Project teams building a refinery or             faster and more accurate, and improves
(ECM) program in early 2007. Information                            laying a pipeline, or Communities of             our ability to make high-quality
management professionals within Marathon                            Practice developing knowledge assets,            decisions.‖
worked with Houston-based Gimmal Group,                             use TeamView sites where members
a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that                             collaborate in a single shared place. As        Improved compliance and discovery
specializes in ECM and records                                      of January 2010, Marathon had                    efficiency. Because Marathon now has
management solutions using Microsoft                                implemented approximately 250                    a structured way to clean up its infor-
technologies. ―We consulted with many                               TeamView sites, a number expected to             mation, employees can better align with
other companies in the energy industry and                          grow substantially over the next few             internal policies and regulatory require-
beyond and found that Microsoft Office                              years.                                           ments. With more streamlined informa-
SharePoint Server 2007 was the common                                                                                tion stores and the ability to search for
denominator of their ECM systems,‖ Smith                           MyView sites present information that            information down to the individual
says.                                                               is customized for each individual.               TeamView or MyView, Marathon can
                                                                    Employees can personalize their MyView           more quickly and easily meet legal
The Marathon team focused on building an                            sites to their liking. While MaraView,           discovery demands.
ECM policy framework, defining information                          TeamView, and MyView sites all connect
management governance roles, simplifying                            people to information, MyView sites also        Slower information growth rate.
and standardizing the company‘s                                     connect people to people. These sites            Marathon now has companywide
classification and records retention process,                       contain profile information and serve as         document retention rules that govern
and implementing the technology                                     the company‘s skills and expertise               which documents, both electronic and
infrastructure. Gimmal provided strategic                           inventory. If a team is looking for              physical, are saved and for how long.
content management guidance, ECM                                    engineers with deep-water drilling               ―We are slowing the rate of information
design, and development assistance.                                 experience, it can search MyView sites to        growth by having a more disciplined
                                                                    quickly find those individuals.                  retention management strategy,‖ Smith
In 2009, Marathon introduced MaraView™,                                                                              says. ―In addition, people are now quite
its ECM solution for creating, finding, and                     Benefits                                             aware of the risks associated with hav-
sharing relevant, up-to-date, and trusted                       With its enterprise content management               ing multiple copies of the same
information. MaraView has three tiers:                          solution, Marathon has slowed the rate of            information.‖
                                                                growth of the information mountain. While
   MaraView front page serves as the                           still a work in progress—enterprise              An information management focus makes
    corporate intranet home page and                            adoption is expected to continue through         Marathon a more efficient, productive
    provides employees with a consistent,                       2011—thus far, Marathon has achieved:            company that can better compete in
    companywide communication channel,                                                                           today‘s tough energy markets.




This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.

Document published February 2010