Web-based intranets - a profitable investment for coping with the flood of information?

http://www.contentmanager.net/magazine/article_326_webbased_intranets.html

Status quo in companies

In the current economic situation companies get more and more under pressure, because on the one hand margins are decreasing and on the other hand customer requirements are growing. Ideally companies offer their customers (internal and external) the wished information (for example, FAQ-lists with regard to products or address lists) at any time at any place for each terminal. In order to meet the demand of many customers on feedback or individual support companies are searching for ways to offer their users corresponding feedback channels. This way they are in a position to communicate with them and thus to improve the quality of information as well as to increase the customer binding with the aim of profit maximisation.

Different studies (compare Cap Gemini Ernst & Young - business-to-employee-study: new possibilities through employee portals, 2002 as well as META Group -intranets and extranets in the 21st century; study, 1999), which deal with e-transformation or intranet portals, report that the status quo in companies with regard to customer binding targets and efficiency increases at the supply with information is far away from a technical condition of an enterprise information portal with an archiving system, a search engine, document management and workflow functionalities, knowledge landscapes, employee self service, collaboration as well as virtual communities, which is already possible today. In the area of communication or information provision, however, meanwhile more than half of the questioned companies offer their employees online access to company-internal data and knowledge resources (compare Cap Gemini Ernst & Young - business-to-employee-study: new possibilities through employee portals, 2002, P. 8). With the today's internet technologies (for example, XML, role-specific assess rights) it is possible to support all communication and transaction processes of a company through an intranet portal (for example, accelerate innovation processes, increase productivity, make human capital retrievable, exchange knowledge within virtual communities). Through the utilisation of these technologies application frameworks with an efficient navigation and intelligent search machines can help, for example, to reduce the average duration of a call in call centres.

Stages and tasks at the introduction of an intranet

In order to achieve the set targets (cost reduction through efficient working processes, increase in (service) quality through qualification of the employees and target-group specific information supply at any time at any place) by means of the introduction of a web-based intranet, the three different levels "strategy", "processes" and "technology" have to be successfully harmonised over the four typical project stages "plan", "design", "build" and "run" (see illustration 2).

Within this integrated procedure, which deals with content management, change management and process as well as IT-efficiency, it is important to support the companies in the professional realisation of the company-wide intranet and the homogenisation of heterogeneous data sources for the personalised and target-group specific information provision with the following services:

• Establishment of a business case - ROI, Quick Wins and long-term results
• Risk analysis - identification of technological and economic obstacles
• Product selection and supplier management - setting up criteria for the selection and early participation of the later users
• Implementation of the whole system, as well as specification and development of customer specific adaptations
• Skill transfer and trainings
• Integration in the existing IT-infrastructure and support in the operation

Outlook: the investment has to be lucrative!

Therefore due to the general economic situation and the connected stagnation and general hesitation towards investments of the companies it is particularly important to demonstrate the expected return on investment. Since this is difficult to quantify and measure, especially at intranets which are based on knowledge management applications, the attention in the "plan" stage should be directed to the identification of benefit areas in order to be able to positively design a business case. Companies would only invest in certain partial areas in a well-directed way if the following urgent challenges were managed by this:

• How can costs be reduced? Product X may only cost at most Y Euro, when it is drawn up
• How can the result be increased with the same number of employees? Each employee has to increase his "added value" by 5%
• How can knowledge be internalised if employees leave the company? Especially in case of a fluctuation of 20% the overall know-how has to be saved
• How are employees to be informed in these turbulent times? A daily magazine or a newsletter has to be drawn up for the employees

The fundamental reasons for the introduction of an intranet are still existing: the securing and utilisation of knowledge and expertise coming from the heads of key people, an improved interaction between technology, employees and processes as well as the target-group specific information provision. In addition to this, further important "market drivers" are the constant organisational change, to which a company is subject to, for example, due to a merger or acquisitions, the introduction of customer relationship management, modifications of the market through deregulation and e-business. They will take care that investments in this area will be continued and that the demand on services and solutions remains to exist to meet these challenges.

Published: 03/2004
Author: Christian Zietz

Christian Zietz is a business consultant (area of advanced content & services) at Capgemini.

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