Portal Solutions Opening The Door To Better Communications

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 15, 2000 by Jillian S. Ambroz

INTERNET AND INTRANET TECHNOLOGIES ARE GIVING PUBLISHING COMPANIES POWERFUL NEW WAYS TO SHARE VITAL INFORMATION IN REAL TIME--AROUND THE WORLD AND AROUND THE CLOCK.

IT'S 1995 AND YOU'RE IN THE CHICAGO-O'HARE AIRPORT PLAYing phone tag with the office about a key project that's on deadline. Your plane is about to board, and you're running out of time and patience. Okay, now fast forward to 2000: You just dial into your company's intranet via your cell phone or PDA to get the information you need, leaving plenty of time to pick up a magazine or get a cup of coffee--even if it's 10 p.m. on a Saturday night.

In today's global business market, where everything is 24/7 and real-time, companies must communicate information internally at that same level in order to survive. Most publishing enterprises are busy enhancing their traditional methods of internal communication--old standbys such as newsletters, magazines and town meetings--with new electronic technologies to keep their employees well informed.

As employees grow to expect this up-to-the-minute, interactive exchange of information that is vital to their business day, it is becoming necessary to choose solutions that are feature-rich and professional, beyond the basic e-mail and telephony.

"The threshold has gotten lower, where once crossed--once you reach a certain size of business, a certain revenue--you have to be looked upon as a professional organization," says Robert Mahowald, senior research analyst, International Data Corp. "You've got to move into a more professional application, which means spending more money and buying more infrastructure."

Intranets--secure, interactive Web domains for enterprise information sharing--present a great communication tool, especially for globally distributed enterprises that need a central hub. Today, most larger publishing companies either have an intranet or are developing one. The solutions vary in terms of use and functionality, from access through a URL to custom desktop portals that offer unique functionality based on user needs. And there are plenty of scalable options to fit almost any business.

"More people are adopting these portal technologies than ever before. I see a lot of companies that initially got onto the Web as a defensive measure--they felt they had to put a Web site up to tell who their company was--really starting to look more closely at using this technology as a business tool both internally and externally," says Chip Brady, business development manager at MarchFirst, an Internet professional services company based in Chicago. "Each individual can have a custom-tailored entry point into all the information needed relative to the company the person works for and the industry the person works within. That can include human resources information, scheduling, travel arrangements, policies and procedures, benefits--all sorts of information, depending on what the company wants you to see."

Adds Vikki Swain, creative director at MarchFirst, "The beauty of a portal is, it really allows the company to create exactly what they want their employees to see that days if it's an important headline, or the president's letter, that's what's going to be the focus of the home page for that day. It's a highly customized, intentional way of communicating with your internal culture."

Intranet technology has been available for several years. As more and more companies develop their online presence and become accustomed to the new communication paradigm, intranets are a natural extension of their communication strategies.

"It's really been in the past five years that some of the more progressive or forward-thinking companies started to leverage this technology," says James Menk, practice manager, Enterprise Self-Service Practice, at Logical Design Solutions, a New Jersey-based Web development and systems integration firm. "Again, in those days it was fairly simple--just Web publishing. Now it has really changed into this integrative solution and two-way communications and information sharing."

Early adopters

International Data Group, one of the early purveyors of this technology, had its first intranet up and running in 1994 and moved to a Web-based model in 1996. With offices spread across 80 countries and a work force of about 12,000, communication is critical to IDG. "All of our individual business units operate independently. So for us to use intranet technology to share information, to share knowledge, is extremely important and allows us to leverage our greatest asset--these decentralized business units," says Jeff DeBalko, president, IDG Global Communications, IDG's information technology unit. "We act as a corporate portal, sort of tying a lot of those together to allow the business units to share other types of internal information," he says.

One of IDG's most valuable intranet sites is its e-mail-enabled "Customer Intranet," where it tracks information about its customers, competitors and the marketplace in general, pulling in information from all of its various business units, says DeBalko. The site includes real-time news coverage of various customers, as well as archived user information on customers. Employees can automatically be notified via e-mail or wireless link when news breaks regarding their customers--a helpful tool for the sales force. "We're very focused on how technology can enhance our customer relationships. We don't want to change relationships, we want to add value to them. And the technology that's available today--and that we're using pretty aggressively at IDG--allows us to do that," says DeBalko.