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Hitachi Rail | Percy Intranet

IEP VETEC (2200x500)

Industry

Transport

Challenge

Enhancing communication and collaboration by implementing a single global intranet to support the entire company across 30 countries.

Results

The delivery of a powerful collaboration and communication tool against a strict timescale, also launched in Hitachi's three main languages simultaneously: English, Japanese and Italian.

Percy
Intranet Enterprise
14,000
Business Employees
30
Countries
3
Languages

The Perspicuity team's calmness under pressure instilled confidence that the deadline would be met, even though it was extremely challenging. Because the team was very clear about the outcome, we always knew what to expect.

Vanessa Unwin

Global Head of Internal Communications | Hitachi Rail

Header Image

About Hitachi Rail

Hitachi Rail, the global train manufacturer, is known in the UK as the company behind the intercity Express Programme (IEP) on the GWR network and, more recently, the Azuma trains on the east coast mainline. The company has 14,000 employees across 30 different countries and 3 continents, but is predominantly based in the UK, Italy, Japan, and APAC. Its operations also cover countries in North and South America.

The Opportunity

Six months prior to the intranet launch, Hitachi Rail underwent a reorganisation into a matrix structure that required everyone to become more effective at collaborating and communicating internally.

The goal with Hitachi Rail was to implement a shared platform on which their staff could access information, stay updated on business news throughout various regions, and monitor project development and progress.

The Perspicuity Solution

Perspicuity put together a plan with an effective timeline for completion, presented in simple, easy to understand language. This was supported by both the weekly project pulse calls and an on-site presence, ensuring a high cadence of communications.

Perspicuity engaged with Hitachi Rail's design team to ensure the brand was reflected correctly along with providing supporting imagery to re-enforce brand guidelines. Furthermore, Perspicuity worked with their international content authors to make sure the intranet launched simultaneously in all three primary languages used across the company - English, Japanese and Italian.

The real-world expertise that Perspicuity demonstrated, along with their ability to find the answer to any question, was vital to Hitachi Rail in a project with such a tight turnaround time. The entire project was completed, to schedule - in just under four months.

"Perspicuity's intranet solution was perfect for our situation, particularly given our requirements and deadlines. We really needed something that felt like it was out-of-the-box, and that we could adapt to something that would live up to the Hitachi brand. Fortunately, it gave us all of that right from the beginning. I don't think we could have completed the project without it."

Vanessa Unwin | Global Head of Internal Communications

The Outcomes

Since launch, the intranet has "significantly increased business popularity in a way that I couldn't have imagined", says Unwin. Now established, the site sees around 250,700 hits across the three language versions per month, with each news story averaging about 16,500 views per month.

The Tech We Used

Hitachi-Rail-Tech