Hero Future Energies
AnintranetbuiltforHero,notforIT.
A bespoke intranet for one of India's largest renewable-energy groups — built for thousands of employees, not a demo.
Stack
- Next.js
- React
- TypeScript
- Node
- Tailwind
- Design tokens
- SSO / SCIM
- Role-based access
Results
The brief
Problem
Hero Future Energies needed an internal platform their teams would actually open twice a day. Off-the-shelf intranets optimise for IT; they don't optimise for people. SharePoint was the default, the backlog was ten modules deep, and nothing felt like a product.
How we built it
Approach
We rebuilt the concept from first principles. A design system that grows with every new module — tokens, components, docs, parity with the Figma source. A performance budget that survives corporate VPNs. Interaction patterns borrowed from the best consumer software, not enterprise software. Role-based dashboards that surface the two things a person actually needs that day, instead of forty links they have to hunt through. SSO + SCIM from day one, so IT didn't have to babysit it.
Decision log
What we decided, and why.
01
Why we didn't start from a SharePoint base
SharePoint solves IT's problem, not the employee's. Every custom layer on top ends up fighting the base, and the end user still can't find the one thing they opened the portal to do. We started from Next.js and a design system so the employee experience could be the product, not a skin.
02
Why role-based before feature-complete
Seven employee archetypes were defined before a single screen was designed. That meant the first module shipped felt sharp for the four roles it targeted, instead of generic for everyone. Subsequent modules inherit the same role-routing, so scale doesn't dilute relevance.
03
Performance as a hiring signal
Corporate networks, VPNs, older laptops — the default intranet experience is slow. We set a hard LCP budget of 2s on the slowest representative device. That budget drove decisions about bundle splitting, image strategy, and edge caching — and kept the intranet feeling like a consumer product, not an IT tool.
Common questions
What buyers ask before signing.
- Q01Can you build an intranet for a company of this size without using SharePoint or a packaged suite?
- Yes — and we'd argue you should. Packaged intranets save IT weeks; they cost employees decades of cumulative friction. On a modern stack (Next.js, Node, SSO/SCIM, a proper design system) you can ship the first module in eight weeks and scale to twelve-plus modules without re-architecting.
- Q02How does SSO + role-based access work here?
- SSO was wired from day one via the client's IdP. SCIM handles provisioning and de-provisioning — new hires get their role-appropriate dashboard on first login, and leavers lose access on the day. Seven defined roles map to seven distinct landing experiences.
- Q03What does the design system cover?
- Tokens (colour, type, space, motion), 80-plus bespoke React components, accessibility primitives, and a Figma library that stays in parity. Documentation is co-located with code. Every new module picks up the system for free.
Related work
More from the enterprise shelf.
FMCG · 2024
Nutricana Feed
A research-driven cattle-feed brand operating across 10+ states, given a site that respects both the science and the farmer.
Read case studyFMCG · 2024
Corral Feed
A fast-growing feed brand whose product is confident and whose old website wasn't.
Read case studyEducation · 2024
NK Education
30+ years of expertise, 5,000+ successful visas, 400+ university partners — on a site a parent can trust in thirty seconds.
Read case study