How Forvis Mazars managed a global rebrand through their SharePoint intranet with Andy Hall
Andy Hall from Forvis Mazars shares how his firm successfully managed a complete global rebrand and tenant migration while keeping 3500 employees informed and productive. From renaming their intranet from the tarnished “Compass” to the employee-chosen “Hive,” Andy reveals the practical strategies that worked during massive organizational change.
Andy explains how they created a single source of truth for rebrand information, used governance as a “trojan horse” for content cleanup, and leveraged SharePoint’s flexibility to communicate change across 10 UK offices. He also discusses the challenges of migrating 250 content editors to a global tenant and why their strong governance framework positioned them perfectly for AI implementation.
The conversation covers the real impact of acquisition on knowledge management, the surprising effectiveness of FAQ pages over video content, and how they’re now using SharePoint agents for their next major change initiative.
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Change management through centralized communication: A single source of truth strategy
Organizations facing major transitions need a communication anchor. Andy Hall from Forvis Mazars discovered this firsthand while managing multiple organizational changes in rapid succession: a complete intranet migration, a corporate merger, and a global tenant move. His solution was deceptively simple yet highly effective.
“We had a centralized page that all the communications, the FAQs, the documentation, the videos that the group were putting out about the reasons for the network formation were all housed in one place that we could just keep pointing people to,” Andy explained.
This approach solved a critical problem that plagues most change initiatives. When employees miss an email or webinar about important changes, they often struggle to catch up. Multiple communication channels create confusion rather than clarity. Andy’s team created dedicated hub pages for each major change initiative, serving as the definitive source for all related information.
The strategy proved particularly valuable during their corporate rebranding from Mazars to Forvis Mazars. Rather than relying solely on email distribution lists or hoping employees attended live sessions, they built a comprehensive resource center. This included FAQ pages organized by business function, video content from leadership, and step-by-step guidance for client-facing teams.
The impact extended beyond simple information access. Having a single destination for change-related content enabled Andy’s team to update information in real time as circumstances evolved. When migration timelines shifted or new questions emerged, they could maintain accuracy across all communications by updating one location.
This centralized approach also transformed how other teams managed their responsibilities during organizational change. Department heads knew exactly where to contribute their piece of the change puzzle, ensuring comprehensive coverage without duplication or gaps.
The success of this model led Andy’s organization to adopt the same strategy for subsequent changes. “We’ve used that for other big communication campaigns where we’ve had to house a lot of information that maybe people aren’t interested in all the information, but they want to dive in and get a little bit of it,” he noted.
The lesson for other organizations is clear. Change management succeeds when employees know where to find reliable, current information. Creating a single source of truth requires minimal technical investment but delivers outsized returns in employee confidence and organizational agility.
To hear the full conversation, listen to the complete episode of Fresh Perspectives from Fresh Intranet.