John Laing is a specialist owner, operator and manager of public sector infrastructure assets in the UK and internationally. By combining skill in the management of development risk, project financing, asset management and operations with those of chosen partners and the project supply chain they have built an enviable reputation as a market leader in the privately financed form of infrastructure renewal and modernisation, long recognised as a key element of public sector procurement policy.

John Laing chose SharePoint as a platform for their contact relationship manager portal. This allowed them to centralise their extensive database of project staff, contractors and suppliers and allowed them to manage their relationships with each other. Phase 2 introduced an in depth Project Portal which enabled John Laing to integrate contacts from the relationship manager into project areas of the Project Portal thus creating a fully manageable area where project sites can be created. All documentation, images, designs and key contacts relevant to John Laing projects are held in this project portal.

John Laing had a need for streamlining the contact management and creating project sites for each active project. This would allow them to have a centralised site which can be accessed by key employees working on various John Laing projects. A central site/portal for these projects would act as a repository for all project documentation and key contacts and suppliers. Access to this portal needed to be granted to internal and external contacts relevant to John Laing projects.

The Relationship Manager and Project Portal utilised many SharePoint features, both standard and customised. Here are a few features that were widely used and some other consultative services supplied:

• Sites and sub sites​
• Document libraries ​
• Custom content types​
• Site Branding​
• Farm configuration​
• Migration to dual Active Directory planning and deployment

John Laing has made significant cost and time savings since the Relationship Manager and Project Portal have been deployed. Having a centralised area where internal and external users can access all relevant project information has meant that administration of project information is kept to a minimum and all staff and contractors can quickly find relevant personnel and get access to vital documentation at any time through the portal.