In our latest webinar, From Communication to Collaboration: Optimising your digital workplace, Richard Dixon (Chief Digital Officer at Black Sun Global) was joined by Erwin Blomeyer (Head of Technology Development) and Ichicraft's Mike Fortgens (Partner & Customer Manager) to explore how organisations can unlock deeper employee engagement and maximise the impact of their Microsoft 365 environment.
As businesses continue adapting to new working models, the expectations, pressures and needs of employees have fundamentally shifted, and with it, the role of internal digital platforms.
This session examined how organisations can move beyond traditional intranet publishing to create a personalised, intuitive and highly collaborative digital workspace that truly supports how people work today.
SharePoint remains one of the most widely adopted technologies for internal communication and collaboration, with over 80% of enterprises using it as their central content hub and 85% confirming it improves collaboration and communication.
Yet despite its strengths, many organisations continue to face the same friction points:
The post‑COVID workplace has become increasingly decentralised, with employees relying on multiple tools, channels and devices to stay connected. This has intensified the pressure on organisations to create experiences that are not only accessible, but cohesive, intuitive and genuinely engaging.
The opportunity lies not in replacing SharePoint, but in elevating it. By layering Ichicraft Boards onto existing SharePoint environments, organisations can deliver a dramatically improved digital workplace experience—one that is personalised, branded, dynamic and engaging.
This approach allows organisations to:
Instead of requiring employees to actively search for information, the digital workplace delivers what they need—when they need it.
Ichicraft Boards redefines the digital workplace by bringing everything together through configurable widgets (over 25 of them) that adapt to employees’ preferences and working styles.
A personalised start to the day
Employees access a dashboard that presents their calendar, to‑dos, documents, company news, updates and resources, all in one place, without jumping between apps.
AI at your fingertips
Integrated Copilot functionality provides instant answers, summaries and assistance directly within the digital workspace, reducing context switching and improving flow.
Complete control for users
Employees choose which widgets to include, how they appear and how they’re organised, while organisations retain control over essential content that must always be visible.
Brand‑aligned design
Admins can apply flexible branding controls to ensure the digital workspace reflects the organisation’s identity, and even tailor design variations for different subsidiaries or regions.
Powerful, integrated search
A central search bar unifies results across SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, external sources and people directories - tackling one of the biggest pain points in internal communications.
Mobile-ready and highly responsive
Boards adapt seamlessly to smartphones and tablets, ensuring the digital workplace is accessible and consistent wherever employees are working.
A recent implementation demonstrates how this approach can reshape the employee experience at scale.
The challenge:
Bringing together three different companies, with:
The vision:
A digital platform that supports all group and company activities, connects people across geographies and teams, and provides the tools to learn, collaborate and work more effectively, wherever they are.
The result:
Halo 2.0 now offers:
The transformation demonstrates how organisations can scale, evolve and centralise their digital workplace quickly and effectively, without rebuilding SharePoint from scratch.
Watch the demo here.
Our team helps organisations design and implement a personalised, integrated employee experience that maximises the power of SharePoint and unlocks far greater return on their digital workplace investment.
We provide:
If you’d like to receive the full webinar recording or discuss how we can help enhance your digital workplace, please contact:
Abbie Dixon, Relationship Marketing Executive
adixon@blacksun-global.com
About Black Sun
Black Sun Global is a stakeholder advisory and engagement agency that's been driving transformation and positive change for ambitious brands for more than 20 years. With deep expertise in disclosure and reporting, ESG, sustainability, and digital engagement, we reshape how organisations connect with customers, investors, employees, and the wider world.
We are trusted partners to some of the most influential global organisations, sparking innovation and sustainable performance through our strategic insights, partnerships, and proprietary technologies.
As founders of the Positive Change Group, we are on a mission to create a new kind of stakeholder relations partner. Our world-class specialists work closely with executive leadership teams to protect reputations, inspire trust, and promote responsible business practices - building resilience and long-term value in a rapidly changing world.
For more information, please visit: www.blacksun-global.com
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