Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit (Dutch Competition Authority) 

The NMa (Dutch Competition Authority) sees to the proper operation of markets. With 370 men and women, it actively supervises competition and economic regulation. The NMa has 5 directorates and 4 staff departments.

Objective

Knowledge, or access to knowledge systems is very important for NMa case handlers. The following issues were involved:

• Existing (knowledge) systems were not always sufficiently populated.
• Systems often were not simple to use and knowledge on their use was not always effectively to hand.
• Information existed in a fragmented form and thus was not always easy to access.
• Information was not presented appropriately to the case handlers’ ways of working.

As a result, it took a lot of time to properly learn how to work with the existing systems. And as the systems were not always sufficiently populated, the results of this time investment were often unsatisfactory.

Case handlers appreciate the importance of knowledge management for the quality of their daily work. When handling a case, essential knowledge sometimes threatened to be lost, because it was not (or not accessibly) recorded and employees involved left the organisation.

Solution

By order of the Board of Directors of the NMa the first four months of 2006 were spent working on the realisation of a "Pilot Knowledge Portal" for the NMa. The portal had to offer a structure that is logical for the case handlers in order to make pre-existing information and knowledge searchable. The knowledge portal was intended as a proof of concept, with the aims both of convincing the case handler of the benefit of such an environment, and of challenging handlers to more actively distribute knowledge and information. It concerned a pilot with the JD and CT directorates. The advisory group of representatives of all directorates within NMa already existed. During this project, the wishes collected in the first phase were realised in a new version, with the aim of providing a system in which all wishes of the advisory group were embodied.

Inter Access has supplied the following elements within the framework of this order:

• Bespoke development
• Training of users
• Project management
• After-sales support
• Provision of business process consultancy
• Advice on licences
• Workshops
• Functional design
• Technical design
• Construction and implementation
• System and acceptance testing

Why Inter Access?

Through a European Tender, NMa awarded the order to Inter Access because of the good price/quality ratio and the fact that Inter Access has been named Microsoft Gold Partner on many occasions.

Advantages Gained

• Time saving in searching for related and/or associated information in combination with non-routine work
• Information coming from different systems is well-organised
• Provides a bridge between employees, projects, topics and "documents"

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