Vue Group

VUE GROUP

United Kingdom-based Vue Group is a global media and marketing company that provides special services to real estate companies. It offers these clients virtual tours, photographs, floor plans, and other documents, delivered via the Web.

SITUATION

As part of its operations, Vue Group shares property photos and diagrams with realtors internationally. The realtors use these photos to help in their sales processes, says Kiel Roche, head of operations at Vue Group. For collaboration, originally, the company relied on a custom-built file transfer protocol (FTP) based system.

However, uploading the files for each project was a manually intensive and error-prone process. Every job needed from five minutes to 10 minutes to complete. The system required an employee to tag the images, and then send the client an email with a hyperlink, to initiate the download.

Frequently, the email contained broken links that were unusable. Sometimes Vue Group staff had to re-send the link; the error checking and correction ate up 70 percent of one’s employee’s entire workload. Roche concluded Vue Group needed a more streamlined and secure process, and started looking for an integrated online solution.

SOLUTION

After a brief Web search, Roche tested the Intralinks VIA online file sharing and collaboration solution. “I couldn’t have asked for a better product,” he says. “Literally, within four hours of playing with the system, I said to my director: ‘I’m buying this.’”

Among the solution’s benefits is its intuitive and streamlined drag-and-drop interface, which requires virtually no end-user training. Although many of the Vue Group’s customers aren’t technically trained, the navigation in Intralinks VIA is user friendly enough for them to rapidly adopt the system. It is easy to directly invite users to access files relevant to them, instead of emailing them a hyperlink. The invited client just clicks on to a Workspace and accesses the content. 

BENEFITS

Soon after adopting Intralinks VIA, Roche found employees typically share files 90 percent faster than before. “I can honestly say that per job, it takes us one minute where it used to take us 10. The clients love it. Intralinks does exactly what it says on the product’s label: secure file sharing. It works. I would choose Intralinks 10 times out of 10.”

Additionally, there are collaboration technologies (such as an Outlook plug-in), that allow users to securely upload Word, PDF, and other files directly into Intralinks VIA. Users can access these documents in their native formats without relying on email communications. Any document updates are immediately visible to Vue Group employees, reducing the time required for any necessary follow-up tasks.

“Rather than a phone a call, we get an email,” says Roche. “The client can print it and download the document, change it, and re-upload it with the changes. Automatically, I’ve got the amendments in the document there in front of me.”

Also, Intralinks support staff is responsive. “As a client, I do feel important to Intralinks, and that what I want matters to it. I love your product.”