Intranets and corporate portals an overview Martin White Managing Director, Intranet Focus Ltd. Internet Librarian International 2001

Agenda Intranet and extranet adoption in Europe The lessons so far Intranets in the public sector Intranets and corporate culture The evolution of the corporate portal business The immediate future

Intranet penetration, Europe International Data Corporation Global IT survey 2000

Intranet adoption UK DTI International Benchmarking Study 2000

Intranet/extranet comparison UK DTI International Benchmarking Study 2000

However! Despite the rate of adoption of intranets the level of success of these intranets in having a significant impact on business and organisational efficiency and effectiveness is highly variable This is especially the case in the public sector In the UK both the National Audit Office and a Select Committee of the House of Commons have commented on the apparent lack of effectiveness of central government intranets

The intranet cost iceberg Hardware/software Time

Intranet issues The staff resources required to implement an intranet are always under-estimated Once an intranet fails to deliver benefits it is very difficult to re-launch the intranet as staff lose their trust in the desk-top An intranet never stops being developed Adding electronic versions of printed documents to an intranet without re-designing the business process and the document results in a reduction in efficiency

Why intranets often fail - 1 Without a clear focus for the objectives of the intranet the content fails to support these objectives, and so staff use other resources in their routine work Inadequate staff resources (in terms of both numbers and skills) are allocated, with the result that content updating is variable in timeliness and relevance The content architecture is based on the organisational structure, and severely inhibits locating relevant information from across the organisation Key documents are not on the intranet at launch

Why intranets often fail - 2 The requirements for staff training and for IT support are underestimated The initial software platform does not provide the functionality that emerges from the requirements of users as the intranet starts to evolve from a ‘publishing’ stage Job descriptions and evaluations do not take into account the contribution expected of staff to the development of content for the intranet There is no formal internet/intranet/extranet strategy that optimises the use of information and of staff

NAO report – some findings “Making intranets central to the life of organisations requires considerable commitment by top management, significant investment on a larger scale than for external Web sites, and firm but creative management of the information and facilities made available” “In comparison with private sector companies and overseas government agencies UK departments remain very cautious in making the investment necessary to build cost-effective and well-used intranets” National Audit Office report Government on the web, Dec. 1999

Intranet effectiveness Communication between staff Improving business processes Very effective11%4% Effective27%22% Somewhat effective 43%44% Ineffective14%20% Unsure/don’t know 5%9% Source –

Frequency of use Used by most staff daily30% Used by most staff once a week 34% Used by most staff once a month 9% Not widely used17% Unsure/don’t know11% Source –

Select Committee conclusion “We are concerned that progress in establishing intranets to improve communications within and between departments, and so realise the significant potential for efficiency savings, has been limited” “We note the Cabinet Office’s concern that more needs to be done to change the culture of departments so that electronic communications becomes much more the normal way for departments to do business”

The next critical success factor There has been a tendency to pay lip-service to the impact of intranets on corporate culture The reality is that there is not a single ‘corporate culture’ Corporate cultures are complex, multi-dimensional, and change in subtle ways Recognising the realities of corporate cultures is an essential step in creating a successful intranet that has significant positive impact on the organisation

Intranets and corporate culture A successful intranet needs to reflect - Business and national cultures - Operational and IT cultures - Personnel and communications cultures - Information and knowledge cultures The greater the match between the intranet desktop view of these cultures and reality the more effective will the intranet and the organisation become.

Intranets and culture There is no way that an intranet can, by itself, change any aspect of a corporate culture In the right environment, as part of a culture- awareness and culture-development strategy, an intranet can - Codify the best of an existing culture - Identify issues with the existing culture - Be used to support a change in culture - Stabilise that change in culture

Dante’s Divina Commedia Nel mezzo cammin di nostra vita Mi ritrovia per una selva oscura Che la diritta via ear smarrita In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself in the middle of a dark wood Where the straight path was lost

Corporate portals A corporate portal enables a user to customise their view of structured and integrated external and internal information and applications through a browser interface There are now at least 60 vendors of corporate portal software applications, coming from a number of different application sectors Most businesses want to select just one corporate portal vendor, who will then “own the desktop” Information vendors are now starting to capitalise on the market opportunity

Portal market development To a significant extent the corporate portal/EIP market was catalysed by a Merrill Lynch analyst report published in November 1998 This is often quoted as forecasting that the market by 2002 would be work $14 billion In fact this is a mis-reading of the report, and the forecast for content portals was only $4 billion Even so, the market has not grown as quickly as was forecast by many commentators in 1999/2000

World portal software market Yankee Group

Portal vendor segmentation Most of the 60+ vendors are quite small companies, and are privately owned Few are larger than $100m revenues, such as Hummingbird and Autonomy The major IT/software companies have a keen interest in portal applications, including IBM, Microsoft, Computer Associates, and Oracle The offerings of the smaller vendors are largely a product of their past, such as business intelligence, document management and search engines

Business prospects There are too many vendors for the size of the market Product differentiation is very difficult, and sales cycles can be in excess of six months Developing an RFP is equally difficult Unlike most intranet deployments, portals cost real money, in excess of $100,000 The end result is that many smaller companies may not last through 2001

Intranet software vendors There are a number of new entrants in the intranet market, offering integrated packages “out of the box” There is also a growing interest in Application Service Provider (ASP) intranet applications Among current suppliers are - Active Intranet - Intranets.com - IntraCS - Spectral - PlanetIntra

Portals and intranets A corporate portal is not a substitute for an intranet A portal application can provide a high-level access platform for one or more intranets, and also facilitate the integration of intranet content, legacy databases, applications and external content If the intranet is not currently an effective communication channel, then adding a portal interface, or even replacing the intranet with a portal, is going to make the situation worse, not better

In conclusion Although intranets are now widely deployed there is still much to be done in understanding how to make them effective This is especially the case in public sector situations where there is no “profit”-based justification, and there can also be major information channel management issues Few companies have a coherent, budgeted and adequately resourced web strategy that covers the web site, intranet, extranet and portal deployment

In conclusion Considerable attention to detail is required for a successful corporate portal deployment Portal vendor evaluation will need to focus as much on the financial resources of the company as on the functionality of the product Corporate portal applications are still at an early stage of development In the final analysis the issues are about people, and not the technology

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