Teck

About Our Client

Teck (www.teck.com) is Canada’s largest diversified mining, mineral processing and metallurgical company. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, they are a world leader in the production of copper, metallurgical coal and zinc, a significant producer of gold, molybdenum and specialty metals, with interests in several oil sands development assets.

The company owns, or has interests in, 15 mines in Canada, the USA, Chile and Peru, as well as one metallurgical complex in Canada. They have expertise across the full range of activities related to mining, including exploration, development, smelting, refining, safety, environmental protection, product stewardship, recycling and research. Teck is actively exploring in countries throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa.

The Problem 

Teck was searching for a long-term, low cost solution to a serious business issue: how to manage the proliferation of technical product data and how to disseminate the resulting information to employees, clients, and prospects on the web, across the globe.

There were very specific business requirements:

• There could be no restrictions on the formatting of web pages.
• The creation of new web pages had to be a simple, repeatable process, requiring limited IT involvement.
• There had to be strict controls on access to document/web content and security had to be maintained by the Content Manager.
• ALL content had to be searchable.
• The solution needed the ability to re-purpose content in different languages.
• Vendor support was critical; no IT resources would be available to do an implementation.
• The project budget would be constrained.

Teck investigated a number of potential solutions including MS Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) to solve their web content business issues. The analysis determined MOSS 2007 licensing would be cost prohibitive.

Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS addressed all of Teck’s requirements including some very difficult budget constraints and was selected as the only vendor who met all their business needs.


The Solution

Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS was selected as “an easy to use and affordable solution.” The integration of Web Content Management and Document Management in the same product resulted in a very short learning curve. Once the Point Dynamics’ document framework was mastered, the web content features became second nature: security, workflow, searching and the management of content worked exactly the same whether working with PDF documents or web pages.

1. The creation and maintenance of web pages turned out to be easier than anticipated. www.teck.com has hundreds of web pages and only 1 full-time employee responsible for maintaining web content! The use of Point Dynamics’ website layouts and web page templates made the creation of a web page as easy as the creation of a Word document.
   
   
2. The ability of Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS to separate content from the design of a web page resulted in a productive and non-technical authoring environment. In addition, since the design of a web page was separated from the content, Teck’s special web page formatting requirements were easily met using standard CSS (cascading style sheets) and HTML (hypertext markup language).
3. Point Dynamics’ security and workflow features provided the exact types of controls needed to minimize staffing requirements and maximize productivity – without IT resources. Point Dynamics role-based security model has allowed Teck to manage thousands of documents with ease and a special “preview” mode allows anyone (with the proper security) to see everything as it will appear on the web BEFORE the content is published and made “live.”
4. Point Dynamics’ multi-lingual capabilities saved enormous amounts of time and IT resources. There were no copies of websites required for multiple languages. All web page content had the ability to be purposed for different languages, allowing Teck’s content manager to create an international website, literally as page content was translated! As web page content was translated, pages were published immediately; for those pages awaiting translation, content appeared in the default language. Simplicity at its finest!
5. For publicly traded companies, budgets are always tight. Teck was no exception. As a result, a decision was made to use Point Dynamics’ “on-demand” solution. This solution required no Teck IT staff to support deployment or implementation – and there was no capital expenditure! In addition, there is no on-going IT support for product maintenance. And because the product is 100% web-based, there are no issues regarding customization or integration with legacy applications. For those skeptical of hosted solutions, Teck users are very pleased with the responsiveness of the CMS which is also backed by Point Dynamics’ uptime guarantee. In the future, should Teck decide to convert to an "on-premises" solution, it will be as easy as “flipping a switch.”
6. Vendor support was a crucial element in the vendor selection process as no IT resources were available to assist during the implementation. Point Dynamics was there to provide immediate support, answering questions and resolving issues.

   As with most projects there were surprises…and in this case, they were not only unexpected, but pleasant surprises and they all related to Point Dynamics’ support:

   • Point Dynamics provided many free conversion utilities that resulted in a very fast implementation (without IT’s involvement).
   • Point Dynamics developed new product features (for example, a “News Release” component) based on new Teck requirements.
   • Point Dynamics provided creative solutions to product catalogs, careers, job search and event calendar planning.

   Teck now maintains their external websites using Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS. They have completely re-branded their external sites using Point Dynamics and continue to add content on a daily basis.