Intranet Сarve-out in just three months

Thales and Hitachi Rail announced in early 2022 that they would enter exclusive negotiations to sell Thales’ Global Business Unit Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) for an enterprise value of 1.660 million euros. With around 9,000 employees, GTS is a global leader in signaling and train control systems, telecommunications and surveillance systems, ticket collection solutions, and key technologies for sustainable mobility. Approximately 8 billion passengers benefit from GTS’s rail technologies every year.

A very tight schedule was set for the separation as part of the acquisition agreement. A project was set up to prepare the division for independence in IT. Subsequently, the logical separation of the applications followed. A challenge for IT is that all systems must be migrated. People Online—the intranet for over 64,000 employees, originally developed specifically for the Thales Group—is being migrated to SharePoint Online, as Microsoft 365 also plays a major role at Hitachi.

Starting point: Everything needs to happen quickly

Due to the time pressure, it quickly became clear that we needed to bring in an external service provider who combines high expertise in Microsoft 365 with extensive experience in international carve-out projects,” says Philip Gröting, Business Partner Lead Applications at Thales Germany. “During discussions with various providers, Rocketta convinced us both through their structured approach, successful projects, and on a personal level.”

A detailed migration plan was created after a brief evaluation and conception phase. In a vast database, approximately 200,000 articles and documents were identified in the existing intranet, which is relevant and critical for Ground Transportation Systems. These content elements were automatically extracted from PeopleOnline, converted into the appropriate formats, and transferred to SharePoint as news, pages, or documents.

At the same time, the extensive training offering began. Experts from Rockademy conducted various SharePoint Online training sessions in German and English for users and editors alike.

Result: Project successful

The conception and implementation of the migration, in collaboration with Rocketta, remained the same. The entire project proceeded purposefully and exceptionally successfully. There was a close and regular virtual exchange, with all relevant questions competently and promptly resolved by the Rocketta team. This enabled the entire project to be launched within a short period.