Web Portals: Business or Pleasure?
There have been a number of terms thrown around in the last few years to describe web based technology solutions which will help you to revolutionise your business, words such as Portals, Gateways, Intranets and Extranets but what exactly do they mean and how will they help your business?
Although there are some technical fine points what we are essentially talking about are places to publish and manage information, communicate and interact on the web. In order to gain access to these portals you usually have to type a web address into your browser and enter a secure username and password, a portal will generally know who you are and once you’ve logged in personal preferences and settings will be remembered from your last visit. The aim of any portal is to present you with the information and tools you need to quickly and easily find out what you need to know and do what you need to do.
Ok so that all sounds great, teenagers are using facebook and myspace all the time and it seems to be all they can talk about but how does this apply to my business?...
Good question, and one that is very hard to answer without providing real world examples for you to relate to, which I will go into shortly, first let me try an explanation of why portal technology can do wonders for ANY business:
Every business has information and every business has people, different people need access to different information and by processing this information your people make your business money. You might say this is a very simplistic view on business and you’d be right but can you honestly say that your business would NOT be more profitable if your people and information were better managed? A portal is bit of technology that brings people and information together. A portal is not just an information storage system, nor even an information management system, used correctly a portal improves each person’s ability to process and communicate information within your organisation and this is where your business realises better performance…
OK, I work at McDonalds…?
I will concede that an employee flipping burgers at McDonalds might not have a direct application for using a portal, unless he/she used it for logging their time or booking holiday, filling in employee satisfaction surveys or entering their performance metrics at the end of the day. There are a few applications for an individual but where a portal really comes into its own is when a chain of McDonalds restaurants need to be managed, let me point you to a case study on Microsoft’s Sharepoint Portal and how it helped the McDonalds of the new millennium: Micrsoft case study
Ok, before I was unaware of how much I didn’t know about portals, now I’m aware that there’s a lot I don’t know. You’ve mentioned publishing and managing information, communication and interaction, what does a portal give me over my network file server, email and website?...
This is where some people would throw buzzwords at you like mobility and resilience but when someone says them to me I get the impression they have no idea what they are talking about and as for me I’m not prepared to let that one out the bag just yet. Firstly a portal certainly isn’t meant to replace your email or your website, it is even debatable whether it should replace your network file server as some portals are specifically designed to operate in conjunction with fileservers. The point is that a portal is not a direct replacement for other technology in your business, while you're thinking like that you are not expecting to change and that’s the biggest mistake people make. In order to increase business performance and increase your profitability you have to change and modernise the way you do business and portal technology provides you endless opportunities to do just that. Portals are extremely flexible and customisable to fit any type of business but you have to meet them half way to really start benefiting and it can be difficult for business owners to take a step back and put themselves in that mindset, especially when presented with features and buzz words in flashing bright lights.
I’m coming to the end of my piece as this is only an introduction to portals but I’ll leave you with a few real world examples of how businesses I know have changed and improved their working practice:
Chris, Mobile Executive
Chris is halfway across the world without his laptop and he can still access all his company information from any computer with an internet connection.
Steve, Solicitor
Steve doesn’t email documents to colleagues for them to review and send back different versions, he sends them a link to the document on the portal to check out and check in when they are done. The email notification takes him to the final document which allows him to review the changes and revert back to previous versions if necessary.
Pete, Project Manager
When Pete collaborates with clients and business partners, he sets up a sub-site in his portal and gives them access to documents, meeting minutes and project information. His information out of his email and safely backed up on the portal for his fellow collaborators to see, his inbox is now used for notifications and alerts for when key documents have been added and changed.
A company with a Management Dashboard
In one organisation the departments get their own site where the employees log their time using customisable forms and department heads log activity and performance metrics. Meanwhile management are viewing Key Performance Indicators for each department, the results of the latest surveys and customer service feedback.
I’ll be continuing the story on portal technology soon with a more indepth look at how they can save businesses time and money from implementation to return on investment. Speak soon.
Dan Hancock, Operations Director