SAP StreamWork published a case study on how Direct Relief International is using SAP StreamWork for collaborative decision-making:

“Humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief International has been bringing critically needed medicines and supplies to people affected by poverty, disaster or civil unrest for more than 60 years. In 2010, the organization selected SAP software to help it get personnel and supplies to the right places and people as efficiently as possible. With thousands of clinics located in 72 countries and all 50 United States and hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment and medicines, SAP software helps Direct Relief track every item from its warehouses to the final destinations with a level of precision that has helped the organization consistently score 100 percent in fundraising efficiency as rated by Forbes magazine and the prestigious 2010 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation.

Recently, the organization opted to try a new SAP solution – the SAP StreamWork collaborative decision-making application – to help focus and accelerate projects among teams that are distributed across states and countries. Previously, the Direct Relief team members had been using Microsoft SharePoint for collaboration. However, while they found SharePoint useful as a general portal or intranet, when it came to managing the flow of communications and projects, especially for a distributed group, they preferred the more structured environment of SAP StreamWork.

“We were looking for a solution that could help us drive projects forward,” said Ross Comstock, IT director at Direct Relief. “It helps us quickly get a group of people together and focused on working through a problem, even if they’re in different countries. For that purpose, SharePoint was too general. SAP StreamWork was much simpler, with a lot of tools built into it to drive decision-making. When I have a meeting with stakeholders, I can pop into SAP StreamWork and illustrate where we are on a project. It offers a simple way to tell a story, and it helps our communication with stakeholders.”“

I’ve wrote about this idea last year in an article called “Don’t Buy a Filing Cabinet If You Need a Heartbeat.” I’ll have to post that up here sometime 🙂