A Spirit of Growth: From Barrels to Building a Custom Intranet
A decade-long partnership in tech? That's practically a lifetime. In an industry where change is constant and companies switch vendors seemingly as often as software gets updated, maintaining 10+ years of continuous collaboration between a multi-billion-dollar company and a single technology service provider is exceptional. It takes more than just great results — it demands trust, clear communication, and a shared vision for staying ahead of the innovation curve.
Do you remember much from 2014? That was when a premier distilled spirits company first approached Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP) about working on their intranet. The client's intranet system was outdated, over 10 years old, and no longer serving the needs of their growing business.
The leadership team of this well-known GAP client knew the way their business operated was unique, with highly-specialized processes critical to its success. And they needed a trusted partner to go the distance.
It Started With an Uncompromising Vision
More than once before GAP's partnership began, other software vendors came to this client's table with solutions that didn't align with how the business ran. They required some level of customization — and often compromise. Each conversation ended the same way, with the vendor saying to our client, "You'll need to adjust your process for the software to work." And every time, the leadership team of our client refused.
They were not willing to sacrifice the efficiency, precision, or control their processes demanded. So instead of adapting the company to fit someone else's software, they took matters into their own hands.
With a clear vision in mind, the client's leadership team built the first version of the company intranet using Microsoft Access. Though not an ideal tool for the long term, it served as the initial framework for what they wanted — a custom system perfectly reflecting how their company should operate.
These applications were database-driven and focused on the core functionality the team members needed. However, they were difficult to use and lacked scalability. Often, the members of the leadership team were the only ones who could make sense of them.
But the core principle was there — no compromise. The Access-based intranet may have been hard to use, but it was perfectly tailored to the company's needs… until time went on, and then it wasn't.
Scaling the Intranet for Growth and Future Innovations
As the company grew, so did the need for a more scalable, user-friendly system. The challenge? The client needed to modernize their custom intranet without losing any of the critical functionality the leadership team had designed. They needed a system that would work across the web, integrate seamlessly with existing applications on their intranet, and scale as the company grew.
This is how the long, successful, and still-ongoing partnership with GAP began.
However, the GAP engineering team didn't start by creating a roadmap to rebuild their entire intranet. We started with one application. And we began by understanding the company's specific needs and learning their workflow. This included a tour of their current system and discussions about what the application needed to achieve. We discussed important elements like tiers of access and the different roles users would have.
While the core functionality of the existing code was still effective, it wasn't mobile-friendly, and a major upgrade was needed on the user experience and usability of the solution. The system also lacked high-level reporting, tiered access, and workflow.
This collaborative discovery ensured the final solution wasn't just functional but also intuitive and aligned perfectly with the company's operational philosophy. By the time the GAP team moved forward with development, everyone had a clear shared vision for how the application would support business processes without compromise. The goal was to enhance the user experience without altering the underlying processes working for the business.
The GAP engineering team selected Ruby on Rails to create the modernized intranet, mimicking the precision of the original but with updated technology. We went from a monthly release cadence to a weekly release cadence.
The solution required more than just a technical upgrade — it needed to maintain the seamless experience between different apps, old and new. Employees shouldn't even notice when they are navigating between systems.
It's worth noting the GAP team took over a series of applications — more than a dozen in varying states — originally built entirely on CakePHP by another vendor. Even now, GAPsters continue to maintain those legacy applications and create brand-new sites as needed. The team also continuously upgrades the system, ensuring it evolves with the client's expanding needs.
The GAP modernization process involved:
- Seamless Integration: The team needed to create a cohesive user experience, regardless of whether employees were using the new applications on the intranet or the older applications. Each piece of software had to talk to the others without disruption.
- Web-Based Functionality: Moving away from on-site applications, the new system was designed to allow remote work, with developers able to make updates from anywhere without needing to VPN into the company's intranet.
- Preserving Customization: Perhaps the most important task was preserving the custom functionality so carefully designed over the years — functionality reflecting the company's specific needs and processes.
Once the GAP design and engineering teams tackled the first application, the learning curve shortened with each successive app. They streamlined the process of connecting existing databases and business logic to the new system, ensuring a low-friction transition from Access to Ruby on Rails.
Modernizing Key Applications Across Hiring, Branding, and Compliance
Over the past decade, the GAP engineering team has modernized numerous applications that play a pivotal role in the day-to-day operations of the company, from hiring and bottling and branding to government and environmental affairs. Some of the applications include:
- Career Development App: Employees and their managers can set career goals, track their progress, and assess personal development in weekly updates. It wasn't just about checking boxes — it was about creating a roadmap for growth, a process the client's leadership team valued deeply.
- Performance Development App: This comprehensive tool allows both employees and managers to rate progress on more than 50 specific skills. From negotiation to leadership, this system was built to provide detailed feedback, ensuring employees stayed aligned with the company's high-performance culture.
- Compensation App: This app manages everything from annual salary reviews to bonuses and new hire offers. By integrating real-time salary data from third-party services, the company ensures compensation decisions are informed and competitive, providing transparency and efficiency across the organization.
- Interview Notes App: This application aids the Talent Acquisition Team in evaluating candidates during the hiring process. It allows interviewers to pull resumes, take notes, and use scorecards to rank candidates.
- Government Affairs App: This app tracks key legislation potentially impacting the company's operations, from environmental regulations to taxation on alcohol.
- Container App: An extensive database of the bottles and containers used for each product is managed by this tool, ensuring marketing materials, bottle photography, and specs are always up-to-date.
- Trademark Management App: This app manages the complex world of trademark renewals, registrations, and legal documentation.
- Image Library App: An organized repository of brand images features high-quality bottle shots of every product. Each image is on a white background and kept up-to-date to reflect the exact specifications as they appear on shelves. This ensures other external applications as well as marketing, sales, and product teams have access to the most accurate information.
- Global Compliance App: Designed to navigate the complex world of legal regulations, this system allows employees to access up-to-date information about alcohol laws in states and countries.
- Meeting Notes App: Built for real-time collaboration during meetings, employees log into the intranet, create a meeting agenda, assign action items and take live notes while the meeting is in session. After the meeting, the system generates a comprehensive summary with action items and follow-ups, ensuring every participant has access to the information they need to execute next steps efficiently. This system streamlines communication and decision-making, helping the leadership team stay on top of important tasks.
Custom Intranet ROI — Precision Engineering Boosts Growth, Productivity, and Market Valuation
Research supporting the benefits of company intranets is plentiful. One study found organizations with effective intranets outperformed their peers by nearly 150%. McKinsey found intranets can help boost employee productivity by 25%. Their report noted the companies that stand to benefit the most have a higher percentage of knowledge workers, rely on brand recognition, and need to maintain consumer trust. McKinsey calculated a potential lift in margins at up to 60%.
The custom intranet GAP built for this client more than a decade ago laid the groundwork for growth. Over the past decade, this client's market valuation has more than tripled, and the number of employees has more than doubled.
The approach of this client's leadership team to building an intranet mirrored their approach to creating premium spirits — every detail mattered. Just as their distilling process requires careful measurement, patience, and an uncompromising commitment to quality, so did the creation of the company's intranet.
The result of our still-ongoing partnership is a modern system as finely tuned and meticulously crafted as the spirits this company produces.
