No time to read? Skip straight to the before and after.
The Challenge
TP ICAP is a world-leading liquidity and data solutions specialist, with a team of over 5,000 employees working across 63 offices in 28 countries. People are central to TP ICAP’s success, so ensuring employees have what they need to get the job done is imperative.
TP ICAP recognised that their intranet wasn’t giving employees what they needed. They needed an upgrade – but speed was important. They wanted to deliver high-impact, quick wins for the homepage whilst planning for more complex updates across the wider intranet.
The two core areas that needed attention were:
Branding
The old intranet homepage didn’t align strongly enough with the TP ICAP brand. They wanted a fresh homepage design that was more visual, impactful, and engaging. Most importantly, the homepage needed to make better use of brand fonts and colours, including more complex branding elements like gradients.
The internal team at TP ICAP had experimented with how to do this with SharePoint’s out-of-the-box features, but felt limited by SharePoint’s design capabilities.
Quick Links
The quick links section of TP ICAP’s homepage is where employees go to find key tools and resources, like IT help and expense forms. It’s the most used feature, and the reason why many employees visit the intranet each day.
However, employee feedback identified that it took up too much space and wasn’t customisable.
TP ICAP wanted a more visually appealing solution that employees could tailor to include the tools and resources that were most important to them.
The Solution
TP ICAP reached out to us looking for SharePoint consultancy, seeking help on how to improve their intranet quickly.
We listened to their challenges, their needs, and suggested a product-based approach to deliver the high-impact quick wins they needed.
By layering our products Beacon and MyTools on top of SharePoint, TP ICAP were able to transform their intranet homepage in just 7 days.
Before
After
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Getting Creative with Design
“How do I make SharePoint not look like SharePoint?” is a phrase we hear often, and a sentiment shared by TP ICAP. They were keen to push the boundaries, and really wanted to see the art of the possible.
As well as branding, and the inclusion of MyTools, the design also needed to:
- Make use of multimedia content
- Bring the content around strategy and values to life
- Direct employees to The Wire, TP ICAP’s internal newsletter.
So, armed with this knowledge and a set of brand guidelines, our in-house UX and Design team got creative.
Engaging Headers
- Multiple options for attention-grabbing headers, including full-width banners and carousels
- Directs employees to the most important content in an easy, brand-aligned way
Branding at the Core
- Showcases brand throughout, including fonts, colours, logos and gradients
- Brand elements configured and locked-in at the admin level, ensuring future content is always brand-compliant.
MyTools
- Provides a personalised view by allowing employees to choose the tools that matter to them
- Accessible from anywhere on the intranet via the SharePoint app bar.
Interactive Content
- Embedded key multimedia content including podcasts and videos
- Creates an interactive space for employes to engage.
Supported Self-Build
The great thing about this project is we didn’t build it. TP ICAP did.
Once the new homepage was designed, we wanted TP ICAP to feel confident in using Beacon and MyTools moving forwards. So, we used the build phase as the perfect opportunity for TP ICAP to get hands on.
TP ICAP took part in a supported build. This involved the internal team at TP ICAP and our product team sitting together on a Teams session and walking through the build together.
Using Beacon, TP ICAP put all the designs into place themselves, with some support and encouragement from our team.
We designed Beacon to be intuitive and easy to use for people who might not consider themselves as technical experts. And we’re happy to say TP ICAP agreed. The team were amazed at how easy it was to make SharePoint look great using our product.
Beacon is intuitive. Adding, editing, and organising content is really straightforward. I was quickly able to learn how to use all the features, and didn’t need to spend hours reading and watching tutorials. Beacon keeps things simple, which has allowed us to focus on what matters – our content.
The Impact
Since launch, the new homepage averages 90% employee reach every week.
But beyond the numbers, the new homepage has instilled an attitude shift about SharePoint. It’s a big step to go from ‘We don’t want our intranet to look like SharePoint’ to ‘We want our website to look like SharePoint’ – which makes all the hard work worth it.
We’re already planning the next steps in TP ICAP’s wider intranet overhaul, building on the foundation of a high-impact homepage.
Want to transform your SharePoint intranet in 7 days?
Speak to one of our SharePoint design experts and we’ll show you how.
