Intranets and portals Some current issues

1. Intranets and portalsSome current issues Martin White Managing Director, Intranet Focus Ltd. www.intranetfocus.com

2. Intranet adoption UK DTI International Benchmarking Study 2000 www.intranetfocus.com

3. Intranet/extranet comparison UK DTI International Benchmarking Study 2000 www.intranetfocus.com

4. Intranet penetration, Europe International Data Corporation Global IT survey 2000 www.intranetfocus.com

5. The lessons so far • Recognition of scale-up issues from department to organisation-wide • Importance of a focus on business benefits • Development timeframes are longer than anticipated – indeed development never stops • Extranets and e-commerce have to be considered in an intranet development strategy • Managing staff involvement is now recognised as a major issue • Issues of corporate culture have to be recognised and addressed www.intranetfocus.com

6. Categories of intranet deployment • Category 1 • Well-developed corporate-wide intranet • Intranet manager(s) and identified support team • Largely build with in-house IT expertise • Set up in 1997/1998 • High level of staff participation • Links to external information and DM systems • Management consultancies, telecoms and IT companies, pharmaceutical/biomedical companies www.intranetfocus.com

7. Categories of intranet deployment • Category 2 • Multi-site/multi-national company with intranets deployed in a number of locations • “Working language is English” • Now trying to integrate the intranets onto a corporate platform • Running into issues with differences in corporate culture • Major content management issues appearing www.intranetfocus.com

8. Categories of intranet deployment • Category 3 • 1999 launch - intranet not fully deployed • Limited range of content • No dedicated intranet manager, often “sponsored” by corporate communications or marketing, or the library/information centre • No formal budget • Static or declining use as content does not support business decisions and processes www.intranetfocus.com

9. Categories of intranet deployment • Category 4 • Central government • Often developed by library and information departments • Uses the e-Government initiative as a focus for the work • Intranets not formally recognised by Government • Some are effective, most are not www.intranetfocus.com

10. 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 www.intranetfocus.com

11. Communication between staff Improving the agency’s business processes Very effective 11% 4% Effective 27% 22% Somewhat effective 43% 44% Ineffective 14% 20% Unsure/don’t know 5% 9% Intranet effectiveness Source – www.governmentontheweb.org www.intranetfocus.com

12. Used by most staff daily 30% Used by most staff once a week 34% Used by most staff once a month 9% Not widely used 17% Unsure/don’t know 11% Frequency of use Source – www.governmentontheweb.org www.intranetfocus.com

13. Categories of intranet deployment • Category 5 • Local authorities and not-for-profit sector • Very limited intranet deployment, often on a pilot basis • Poor IT infrastructure • Unable to make an effective business case • Have no idea how to meet the 2005 e-Government agenda www.intranetfocus.com

14. Intranet market development • Companies are now recognising the emerging demand for mid-range content management solutions tailored for the intranet market • Examples include Active Intranet (UK), Spectral (Sweden), IntraCS (South Africa) and some ASP entrants such as Planet-Intra and Intranets.com • Web content management companies will also move into this sector www.intranetfocus.com

15. Corporate portals • Corporate portal – structured integration through a user-customised browser interface of internal documents, databases and applications, together with external information sources and resources • Enterprise information portal – as above www.intranetfocus.com

16. Corporate portals/EIP • Kick-started into life by the November 1998 Merrill Lynch report • The report contains the often mis-quoted forecast of a $14 billion EIP market by 2002 • In fact this was the total enterprise management forecast, and only about $3 billion was EIP software • In the even the portal market has grown much more slowly than this forecast • Why? www.intranetfocus.com

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19. Intranet Communication of internal information Limited database connectivity Standard user interface Limited, if any, access to external information Limited flexibility Low initial cost Corporate portal Information to support business decisions and e-business applications Extensive database connectivity Customised interface Links to external information Flexible High initial cost Intranet cf portal www.intranetfocus.com

20. Corporate portal vendors • There are currently around 60 vendors of corporate portal software • Most are US-based, though there are a number of European vendors, including • Appsolut, Autonomy, Comintell, Insight Technologies, KMS, Linq, Sopheon • Most have migrated from other application areas • It is important to understand the extent of this migration in evaluation products www.intranetfocus.com

21. A confused market and industry • Considerable confusion between • Corporate portal • Enterprise Information Portal • Knowledge Portal • Business Portal • Enterprise Application Integration etc. • The blame for this resides with vendor marketing departments, the Gartner Group, the Meta Group and the Delphi Group! www.intranetfocus.com

22. Industry segmentation • Knowledge management • Net Perceptions, Plumtree • Business intelligence • Brio, Informatica, Viador • Search • Hummingbird/Fulcrum, Sopheon, Verity • Document management • Documentum, Hummingbird • Content • SageMaker, Mediaapps, Factiva www.intranetfocus.com

23. Making a business case • The actual benefits of a corporate portal have never been easy to identify • All that a portal seems to do is add a layer on top of all the existing systems in order to provide integrated access to information and applications through a browser interface • But IT departments can’t work out how it is suddenly so easy to do this • They are also concerned by the ownership of the desktop by one supplier www.intranetfocus.com

24. Selection team • Selecting a corporate portal vendor must be a team approach, and involve • Senior IT managers • Applications support staff • Line-of-business managers • Personnel manager • Business development/strategic planning • Board Director www.intranetfocus.com

25. Selection criteria - 1 • Vendor background and ownership • Long term viability of vendor • Installed base • Technology alliances • Commitment to the UK in terms of development and support • Reliance on key staff www.intranetfocus.com

26. Selection criteria - 2 • Database support • Document support • Thesaurus development • XML support • Scalability • Customization • Indexing process www.intranetfocus.com

27. Selection criteria -3 • Cost ( range from £500 to £40000 per server) • License basis (Server, users, support costs) • Learning curve • Approach to ‘proof of concept’ • Administration procedures • User group • External information access links www.intranetfocus.com

28. Limited awareness of information • Most companies still have little, if any, idea of what information their employees actually use in their daily work • They therefore find it extremely difficult to create a specification for an EIP product • In particular they have no view of the scalability issues if they start at Department A and then deploy throughout the organisation • Portal vendors can’t afford much pre-selling www.intranetfocus.com

29. Budget issues • Getting any idea of the potential cost of portal software is all but impossible • Vendors realise that even out-of-the-box products will need customising, and in any case they have not got enough experience yet to understand what are the key parameters that are going to affect the performance and utilisation of the portal • Who owns the budget, and which doors does a portal vendor have to knock on to secure a contract? www.intranetfocus.com

30. Vendor expertise and longevity • Very few vendors are pure-play portal vendors, and bring with them particular skills which they are then trying to leverage into a generic platform • They are mainly small, privately funded companies with limited (if any) presence outside of the USA • This makes any multi-national company very concerned about stability and support levels • The current US economic woes are having a disastrous impact on the smaller US vendors www.intranetfocus.com

31. The Autonomy effect • Although Autonomy lacks the full functionality of an EIP the visibility of the company in the UK market makes it a benchmark for IT directors and others • Autonomy comes across as providing the ultimate solution mainly by black magic and Bayesian statistics • Many IT directors would not want Autonomy anywhere near their core business “and that goes for all portal vendors” www.intranetfocus.com

32. EIP success factors • A successful EIP vendor will need to have (inter alia!) • A demonstrably scalable business model • A very clear business proposition • Business process analysis capability • The ability to sell against the competition • A strong content management module • Understand the need for access to the external information environment with single log-on • Patience! www.intranetfocus.com

33. Forecast • 2001 is going to be exit-year for a number of vendors • Already many have share prices at rock-bottom, such as Sopheon and Knowledge Management Software • US companies faced with a stagnant market • Severe shortage of development staff • Still a long haul to the close of a sale • The big players are still to make their move, notably IBM/Lotus, Microsoft (Tahoe), Computer Associates, Sybase, SAP www.intranetfocus.com

34. Intranets and portals • The initial view of business was that a portal would be able to replace a poorly functioning intranet • Know they are realising that excellent intranets are needed to provide information food for a portal • Since the cost of intranet enhancement looks to be less than a portal application, they choose the intranet route www.intranetfocus.com