Canadian Airports Council Case Study

Driving Collabration Across a Geographically Dispersed Network

The Canadian Airports Council (CAC) is the trade association for Canada's airports. The CAC has 49 member organizations that represent more than 180 airports. CAC member airports handle virtually all of the nation's air cargo and passenger traffic which translates to over $45 billion in economic activity in the communities they serve. They are partnered with 5 other airport councils internationally which consist of over 580 members operating over 1647 airports in 175 countries.

Business Challenge

• With members geographically dispersed yet needing to jointly work on proposals and documents CAC needed a more efficient way to enable collaboration and leverage collective expertise.
• Discussions taking place in email had no visibility to anyone not copied, which made that knowledge and information impossible to archive and cross-reference in the future by the broader group.
• With 9 main committees and 12 sub-committees all working on various proposals, transparency and just managing all of the input on those documents was a significant challenge.

Clearspace's user interface was key in helping drive adoption and ongoing usage of what we've branded 'The Link'. — Daniel-Robert Gooch, Director of Communications

Clearspace Solution

• CAC contemplated several options, including SharePoint, which key executives felt was too document-centric, especially compared to Clearspace's collaborationcentric approach.
• CAC's selection of Clearspace enabled it to achieve its goal of implementing the most user friendly collaboration platform, combining wikis, blogs, discussions, and automated email notifications.
• CAC's solution, branded "The Link," garnered instant widespread visibility across committees thanks in part to extensive communications during implementation and pre-configuring the platform's automatic email notifications based on association in committees.

Results

• Within just 1 month after the initial roll-out, additional requests to participate in the Link increased user levels another 20 percent - a testament to both the adoption strategies put in place and intuitiveness of the platform.
• CAC partners now have instantaneous visibility of all discussions, ideas, and documents within and across committees.
• New communities are now being requested and created that serve mutual crosscommittee interests and specific projects.

We see Clearspace as the perfect tool to help us drive collaboration between members, and we look forward to extending our community success with our partner organizations around the world. — Daniel-Robert Gooch, Director of Communications