Transforming Collaboration and Communication:
Ardent Global’s Journey
Ardent Global is a leading maritime salvage company formed in 2015 through the merger of Svitzer Salvage and Titan Salvage. Based in Houston, Texas, they have a global network with offices across continents, allowing them to serve every ocean and major sea. In addition to salvage and waste removal, Ardent offers emergency services, offshore decommissioning, government assistance, arctic operations, underwater missions, and more. They handle a large employee base and associated logistical challenges.
Ardent Global faced several key challenges following its merger and expansion. The merger brought together two salvage divisions with different processes and systems. The lack of an effective collaboration and communication tool hindered the ability to work seamlessly across distributed teams and effectively coordinate operations at various locations.
With operations spanning across different continents, Ardent struggled to share the company’s mission, vision, strategy, and priorities with employees in various languages and time zones. This hindered effective communication and alignment among the workforce.
Ardent lacked a streamlined strategy for accessing relevant industry news. This meant they were not able to stay updated on maritime laws, regulations, and incidents that could directly impact their projects. Quick and easy access to curated news was essential to enhance decision-making and stay informed.
The discovery process highlighted the need for a comprehensive digital workspace that would improve efficiency and communication throughout the organization. Such a workspace would provide a unified platform for collaboration, streamline internal processes, and facilitate effective communication across teams and locations.
Ardent embarked on a collaboration with IT-Dev to combat the above challenges with the use of Microsoft technologies, which included a comprehensive knowledge base, integrated workflow solution, and workspaces for projects with discussion-based communication.
The company has tailored its portal data to specific regions, ensuring project managers can easily find contacts for assignments. They use world clock widgets and presence tags for efficient communication during appropriate times.
They’ve established a SharePoint space in their intranet system to centralize vision and mission documents, as well as external communication, making it easy to access relevant files and collaborate with third parties.
By adopting Yammer, internal communication has greatly improved. Discussion boards expedite replies, while articles and announcements share important information.
Through their intranet system, Ardent has synchronized business processes, integrating lists, tasks, calendars, and schedulers for streamlined project overviews and enhanced decision-making.
The implementation of tailored portal data, world clock widgets, presence tags, SharePoint for external communication, Yammer for centralized communication, and a synchronized intranet system has had a significant impact on Ardent.
With approximately 200 daily active users spread across various locations, employees can easily connect, share information, and collaborate despite their distant locations. Permission controls and personalized dashboards ensure each user has access to relevant data, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
The offline access feature has been particularly valuable for remote workers. Overall, the systems have streamlined business practices, improved communication, and created a seamless global workspace for enhanced project management.