The design we handed over. The Alkermes team built it themselves following training.
By Adam Hickman, Microsoft 365 consultant lead
Powered by Lightspeed365. Delivered by our team at Content Formula, the consultancy behind Lightspeed365.
Summary
Alkermes is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative medicines in the field of neuroscience. Its intranet ran across a hybrid SharePoint Classic and Modern environment: a fragmented experience, limited mobile access, and targeted communications that were harder than they should have been. Working with Internal Communications and IT, we designed and delivered a fully modern intranet homepage with audience targeting built in. The Alkermes team built the homepage themselves following structured training, so capability transferred from day one.
Fixing a hybrid SharePoint Classic and Modern environment
Alkermes was running a hybrid SharePoint Classic and Modern environment. The problem with hybrid environments is rarely one platform or the other. It is the split itself. For Alkermes it meant a fragmented intranet experience, limited mobile accessibility, and content that was hard to manage and target across the organisation.
And the homepage was not just a landing page. It was an active internal communications tool. Any move to a modern intranet had to preserve the audience targeting and publishing workflows the team relied on, align Internal Communications and IT behind one design vision, and leave the communications team able to run the homepage without leaning on IT or a delivery partner.
The approach
We combined SharePoint intranet consulting with hands-on Lightspeed365 implementation, working with stakeholders from Internal Communications and IT throughout. Three phases:
Discovery and knowledge transfer. Mapping how the existing homepage worked and which targeted communications workflows had to survive the move. You cannot preserve a workflow you have not properly understood.
Design and configuration. A homepage design shaped by user research and input from both Communications and IT, with Lightspeed365 installed and configured for audience targeting and alerts, and the foundation laid for push notifications in a future phase.
Training and editorial handover. A structured Lightspeed365 training programme, after which the Alkermes team built the homepage themselves.
Why did the Alkermes team build the homepage themselves?
Because a homepage that needs IT for every update, or a partner for every change, would not have met the organisation's needs. So we trained first and handed over the build: a deliberate shift from dependency to capability. The moment I knew it had worked was watching the communications team assemble their own homepage after training, rather than asking us to do it. Teams that run their own content workflows get more value from an intranet and sustain engagement far longer.
What was delivered
A customised modern SharePoint intranet homepage powered by Lightspeed365, built as a working communications platform:
- A fully modern homepage replacing the hybrid environment, with cleaner information architecture and better mobile access, so employees get one coherent experience on any device.
- Lightspeed365 installation, configuration, and training, so the communications team changes what the organisation sees without raising a ticket.
- Audience targeting centred on Lightspeed365's News feed and Policies web parts, supported by Alerts for high-visibility messaging, so the right news, policies, and announcements reach the right employee groups across facilities.
- Setup of Lightspeed365 Alerts, a foundation for Lightspeed365's push notifications, ready for a future phase with no additional custom development needed. A means to target critical communications and bring them directly in front of those that needed to see them both on the homepage and within Microsoft Teams.
- An editorial experience for communications professionals: simple to run independently, powerful enough for sophisticated targeting.
Lightspeed365 extends what SharePoint Online already does well. The platform underneath stays standard Microsoft 365.
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Why it mattered
Alkermes now has a modern, mobile-friendly homepage that works as a targeted communications platform, run day to day by the people responsible for the messages. That ownership was as important as the design itself.
The cost of standing still is worth naming: a hybrid environment only gets harder to manage, and every update routed through IT slows the pace of internal communication. Alkermes closed that gap before it widened, with Lightspeed365 licensing and support in place for ongoing improvements.
Working with Lightspeed365
Alkermes initially planned for our team to install and build the homepage outright, the more traditional route. Lightspeed365 changed that calculation. The platform turned out to be intuitive enough to configure that a consultative build, working alongside Internal Communications and IT rather than handing them a finished product, made more sense than a hands-off delivery. A hybrid environment, two stakeholder groups to align, and a live communications workflow to protect meant collaboration mattered as much as installation. Our team led discovery, design, and configuration, followed by training and handover that moved towards a collaborative approach. This is what let the Alkermes team walk away running their own homepage, rather than waiting on a delivery partner for every future change.
If a similar mix of stakeholders and a live communications workflow sounds familiar, it is worth seeing what other organisations have built with the platform. Browse more SharePoint intranet examples.
Read more Lightspeed365 case studies to see how other organisations have transformed their SharePoint intranet.