Deeside Maritime
The Situation
Deeside Maritime represents superyacht buyers during construction
Deeside Maritime acts as an owner’s representative and project manager for clients who commission the building of superyachts between 50-140 metres in length.
Working in partnership with shipyards, Deeside Maritime oversees the complexities of superyacht construction on the owner’s behalf and makes sure the yacht is constructed exactly to the owner's needs and specifications.
The Problem
Deeside Maritime needed to grow to respond to customer demand
Following several high-profile successful deliveries, demand for Deeside Maritime’s services has been surging. With plans to expand the team underway, Deeside Maritime realised it needed better systems to help organise its workflow, internal communications, and finances.
The Task
Deeside Maritime wanted a technology audit and low-impact solution
Deeside Maritime contacted Rocketmakers and asked for their software architecture team to do an audit of their current digital tools. They also wanted Rocketmakers to recommend changes that would be cost-effective to implement and easy for the Deeside Maritime admin team to manage.
Our Discovery
Understanding Deeside Maritime’s problems and available assets
Rocketmakers held several meetings with Deeside Maritime’s office manager to find out more about their current systems.
The biggest challenge was a lack of consistent use of tools to communicate, store assets, and submit expense claims. For example, to communicate internally, some Project Managers used WhatsApp while others used Slack or Teams. This had been workable when the team was very small but had become difficult to manage as the company grew.
Rocketmakers also discovered that Deeside had recently invested in the Microsoft 365 suite of business applications.
Our Work
Creating an intranet that was cost effective and easy to manage
After a full audit of Deeside Maritime’s application ecosystem and working practices, Rocketmakers’ software architects decided to create a company intranet. This would provide tools for internal communications, workflow management tools, reporting tools for expense claims, and anything else needed to manage the company’s day-to-day operations.
As Deeside already had access to Microsoft 365, Rocketmakers determined that the most cost-effective and easy-to-manage solution would be to create the intranet using Microsoft applications, particularly Microsoft Sharepoint.
Sharepoint does not require modifications to be operational, but they are an option and can be implemented with low-code development.
The Rocketmakers design team created a bespoke layout for Sharepoint to exactly meet their needs, which developers then implemented.
The developers also coded in a dropdown menu with expense claim codes, and a feature which automatically converted expenses claims amounts into Euros (the currency Deeside uses for its accounts).
To complete the intranet, the team also integrated several other Microsoft apps, including Power Automate to handle workflow management, a single project document library using OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams to be the standard communication platform for the entire company.
Because the entire system was built using Microsoft tools, the entire intranet worked just as well on mobile devices as desktops, making it straightforward for project managers to operate while at shipyards.
The Result
A single platform for managing workflow, documentation and finances
After Rocketmakers completed its work, Deeside Maritime took delivery of the new intranet. It instantly made the company's operations much more centralised, consistent, and efficient.
Project managers were able to store their documentation in a single place that anyone in the company could access, share schedules and data with each other, and submit expense claims much more easily and reliably.
Most importantly, by building the internet using tools Deeside Maritime already had access to, there were no new subscriptions to manage or additional running costs to operate.
The Impact
Having the digital tools to facilitate continued growth
Deeside Maritime’s new intranet is allowing the company to continue growing with little or no administrative friction. With demand for their services on the rise, managers can hire additional project managers without introducing more complexity to their operations. New employees, meanwhile, have a much easier time communicating with colleagues and getting the information they need.
Deeside Maritime is already considering additional features to be added to their intranet and hopes to work with Rocketmakers again soon.