Chapter 2

What Can You Do?: The Intranet in Action


CONTENTS

Intranets offer a broad range of capabilities-so broad, in fact, as to be either dazzling or daunting. The challenge to those embarking on an intranet is to define and focus on the functions that meet current and future needs. In other words, intranet capabilities should be considered in terms of their utility to the sponsoring organization and evaluated in the context of overall business objectives.

Another key challenge in considering intranet applications arises from the rapid evolution of this new medium. The intranet envelope is constantly expanding and, like the underlying Internet, it is inherently in flux. Moreover, because they are user-driven, intranets quickly evolve to reflect individual organizational needs, limited only by the sponsor's imagination.

Throughout the next several chapters, this book will explore how individual computer applications can help organizations display information, share data, and communicate resourcefully. The many commercially available products will be discussed and reviewed, and you will see how to customize existing software and create your own. This chapter helps put all this information into perspective. It discusses, in general terms, exactly what you can and can't accomplish with an intranet now, why you would want to use an intranet, and some of the emerging capabilities of intranets.

Three Levels of Usage, Three Levels of Impact

In evaluating the potential use and benefits of intranets, it is helpful to consider three broad levels of functionality, each of which is discussed at length in subsequent sections of this book. Here they are, in ascending order of sophistication and potential organizational impact:

The inherent flexibility of intranets enables organizations to start at a relatively simple level and increase capacity as needed at their own pace. Many intranet sponsors use this medium solely to disseminate information throughout their organizations. Whether by choice or because of organizational obstacles, they don't progress beyond level one. More ambitious sponsors aim for collaboration-level three-from the start. For these organizations, levels one and two offer a means to an end rather than ends in themselves. Regardless of an organization's initial goals, or the pace at which it chooses to pursue them, it is useful to understand the full range of possibilities.

In considering each of these levels of access, the sponsoring organization can define the user group as it sees fit. In some cases, intranets function as "house organs" for employees only; in others, the user group expands to include others, such as key customers, regulators, joint venture partners, or investors.

Level One: Displaying General Information

From the smallest community group to the largest multinational trade association, every organization generates some form of common information-both for its own members or constituents and for the outside world. Whether formal or informal, this information helps tie the organization together, establishing a common understanding of its mission, goals, resources, policies, and news. See Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1: A newsletter distributed via an intranet and available on an intranet.

At its most basic, an intranet functions as a private repository of the sponsor's information, accessible to those the organization recognizes as its stakeholders. These may be employees, volunteers, association members, community leaders, customers, shareholders, or any other groups the organization comprises. Any or all of these stakeholder groups-singly or in combination-should be considered potential intranet users.

The myriad information made available to these stakeholders may take many forms, almost all of which can be adapted to an intranet environment. As a general rule of thumb, virtually anything that exists in print can be loaded onto an intranet, either to supplement or replace the more conventional print form. Moreover, unlike a printed brochure, for example, intranet content can be updated instantly and online, which translates into time and money saved. See Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2: A conventional product brochure in printed form, and the same product brochure transplanted onto an intranet.

For example, employee directories, manuals, and standard operating procedures-which in many companies are constantly undergoing revision-can be posted to an intranet and read by any authorized user, as shown in Figure 2.3. The intranet also can be used to document dissemination of required reading (such as safety procedures) by tracking user access and bypassing the more cumbersome "read and sign" method traditionally required for regulatory compliance, as shown in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.3: An employee manual posted on an intranet.

Figure 2.4: This page on an intranet shows who accessed specific pages and when.

Increasingly, this same principle applies to audio and video media as well. For example, an organization's television advertising campaign could be posted to an intranet site for viewing by authorized users. In this case, the search function is a particular challenge, but one that is rapidly being overcome by search engines that can read images as well as words.

Many companies use their intranets to display historical performance of employee pension funds or stock ownership plans. Some go several steps further: One computer company's intranet lets employees contribute directly to their 401K plan using high-security transaction software. Other organizations display divisional or regional sales performance, updated and compared monthly, so that all salespeople can see how their sales records compare to others'. Some companies post other comparative information, such as lost-time accident records, environmental performance improvements by location, or progress reporting on a new marketing initiative, for review by either all users or specific groups (for example, division officers).

Product information is a popular content category for intranets, whose sponsors see this medium as a means of enhancing customer service. In some cases, an intranet supplements (or even supplants) traditional means of providing product information, such as 800-number hotlines. Industrial concerns have been quick to embrace this method, in part because their customers tend to be either relatively few in number or are more likely to require Internet access. For these companies, intranets offer the opportunity to alert customers to new product information quickly, as well as to provide comprehensive product specifications and usage instructions while ensuring that the information is consistent.

Level Two: Sharing Business Data

In addition to publishing relatively static or historical information, such as annual reports or mission statements, every organization maintains data that is constantly changing. This data might quantify quarterly production, weekly sales, or product inventory; it might document levels of membership or contributions; or it might reflect changes in head count. In addition, many organizations generate prospective data-in the form of sales projections, for example-budget forecasts, or progress reports on new projects. See Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5: An interoffice memo posted on and distributed via an intranet.

At level two, intranets can help organizations manage these frequently modified (and often proprietary) data through their residence on powerful databases such as Oracle. These databases permit maximum capacity for facilitating quick changes to intranet site content, often through automated means.

For example, many computer superstores with chains in many cities or a region use shared databases to track inventory and sales. If you've ever been told that the store you're in doesn't have the product in stock but another location does, you've benefited from an intranet. Each store keeps its own inventory and updates it to a central database. Some stores perform updates nightly or weekly; some perform them up-to-the-minute. With a direct connection between the stores, keeping a common inventory list can be a relatively simple procedure. Then, each store knows what all the other stores have in stock and can provide a much greater level of customer service.

BIKES USA
Bikes USA, a growing regional bike retailer with 11 locations throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, and North Carolina, is an example of a company that, whether it realizes it or not, has reached level two of an intranet and likely will soon evolve to level three.

In February of 1995, the company began designing a computer system that could better serve both its existing and future stores as well as its growing customer base. In building the new system, the company wanted to leave behind several headaches, including those of redundant orders due to an inability among stores to communicate with each other. For example, because the stores couldn't access a main database with inventory data, one store would special-order a product that was unavailable at its location but that was in stock at another location. This was both costly for the company and time-consuming for the stores' sales associates. Similarly, if one store issued a gift certificate or store credit, the other locations had no way of knowing about this transaction, which meant time-consuming paperwork if the consumer chose to cash in the certificate or credit at another location. And, when it came to transferring products among stores, sales associates had no way to track the status of shipments for cus-tomers.

Now all 11 Bikes USA locations are connected to the company's main server at its Alexandria, Va., headquarters. This connection lets sales associates at each store log on to the server and search for a product at any location. If a customer at one location wants a specific mountain bike not in stock at that store, the sales associate can peruse the computer to find out which locations have the mountain bike in stock. Because Bikes USA's intranet is still evolving, the system is not yet in real time. So all products sold on Tuesday aren't updated until Tuesday evening, which means that sales associates currently receive inventory updates daily rather than up-to-the minute. However, within a year, the company has plans for a WAN with real-time inventory available.

Other upgrades planned include real-time e-mail and voice transmission over a WAN to cut down on long-distance telephone costs. The bike retailer also is looking into centralizing its in-store music and is considering piping in consumer-oriented cycling information, such as upcoming events or new store openings.

To accomplish its current networking capabilities, each store has a few nodes on a LAN, and corporate headquarters has an ethernet (10baseT network) that performs the nightly polling of inventory, sales tabulations, and transfers from all the retail locations. It uses an asynchronous modem over dial-up lines at 14.4 bps.

Bikes USA currently utilizes two server platforms, working in tandem, to service and poll information and inventory data from its retail stores. At headquarters it runs Novell 3.12 and an IBM AS/400, with applications running on both platforms. Bikes USA added the AS/400 platform to support its JDA MMS (Merchandise Management System) software, which Novell couldn't support.

Level two intranet usage encourages the selective exchange and review of works in progress. One engineering and construction firm uses a sector of its intranet to link the managers of major construction projects around the world. Because many of these projects-hydroelectric plants, for example-share a common design and similar resource requirements, the ability to exchange progress reports, technical specifications, graphics, and other information lets each manager learn from the experience of others. In addition, this intranet sector provides for automated routine reporting to headquarters, relieving country managers of what had been significant logistical headaches.

This usage has evolved over the past year to include collegial exchange of anecdotal information, as well as more formal reporting. As a result, project managers report a stronger sense of connection with one another and with the firm as a whole. More tangibly, headquarters staff report more timely, thorough documentation-with fewer complaints from the field-and the firm is considering scaling back its schedule of country manager meetings from quarterly to semi-annually.

A major social services organization with chapters throughout the U.S. and Latin America uses its intranet at level two to share draft policy statements and strategic plans with chapter presidents in targeted locations. For this organization, a primary challenge is to preserve and promote an overall identity and strategy while accommodating wide variations in local law, politics, and customs. In addition, the home office has responsibility for "feeding the field"-that is, supporting local efforts with collateral resources, such as printed materials and tech-nical consulting.

This agency's intranet (which was funded by a combination of foundation grants and corporate in-kind contributions) has proven invaluable in improving the turnaround time required to achieve agreement on a broad-and urgent-initiative affecting all 115 chapters. Presidents of these chapters used the site to review an outline of the policy statement and to fill in local details via an e-mail dialog box. Once all comments had been received, the agency posted a revised statement for final approval by executive directors representing each country. Total time from start to finish: three weeks-as opposed to six months, which had been the norm for an "expedited" initiative.

On a more routine level, this agency uses its intranet to distribute regular news bulletins and analyses and to provide local chapters with uniform collateral materials, such as slide shows and pamphlets. The flexibility of the intranet allows local chapters to translate and otherwise adapt these materials to reflect local needs-quickly and at low cost.

Looking toward the future, this organization envisions expanding its intranet to include local sectors that link various volunteer committees, and others that link the home office directly to key foundations and government funding sources.

As these examples suggest, and as discussed in detail in Chapter 14, intranets often incorpor-ate numerous levels of access and security. For example, one company restricts access to sales estimates or budget projections, making them available only to a small group of regional managers. Once this data becomes historical, the company grants broader access, making it available to its entire sales force.

Similarly, authority to modify data also can be restricted, as shown in Figure 2.6. As discussed in Chapters 14 and 15, intranet design commonly distinguishes among users who may view information, those who may post information, and those who are authorized to make changes.

Figure 2.6: This graph, which tracks a company's earnings, is an example of a restricted-access file.

If the intranet has been properly designed, changing and adding access levels and creating new user groups doesn't need to be complicated or time-consuming. In fact, many intranets contain features that let users themselves create private conferences within the site to address specific user needs. The challenge with features such as these is to maintain orderly usage while giving users maximum flexibility. As detailed in Chapter 18, this can be a delicate balance, and there is no single "right" way to achieve it. Rather, "appropriate" usage should be determined by the sponsoring organization, and the site's specifications developed to encourage it.

MCKEON & JEFFRIES
When considering intranet options, McKeon & Jeffries decided on a number of applications and uses they felt were important to their intranet's success. The problem M&J wanted to solve, at least in the short term, was to provide consistent information among their three offices in such areas as human resources information, technical assistance, news, research, and contact networking. In the future, M&J hopes to provide more, but given budget and time constraints, they felt this was a good starting point. To that end, their plan for the intranet was to create the following:
  • An employee handbook-a hypertext digital document that would let employees find information on benefits packages, corporate policies, and new employee information. M&J also wanted the handbook to provide employment opportunities and other employer-related information.
  • Technical manuals. M&J has created several custom macros and applications for use in their office. Instead of creating a new paper manual every time a macro was updated or changed or a new application was created, M&J hoped to provide an electronic document allowing immediate, efficient, and inexpensive updates for a technical resource for all employees. Such manuals include macros for Excel, Microsoft Word, and ACT!. In this technical manual, M&J also hoped to include tips for troubleshooting hardware and software problems that employees might experience. For instance, one known problem was running a Microsoft Word macro on an Excel spreadsheet. Through weeks of troubleshooting, M&J found a solution that involved a few simple keystrokes, and the company changed the Word macro to eliminate the problem. In the meantime, M&J wanted the ability to communicate the new solution to employees; and, when the new macro was available, M&J hoped to give employees a quick and easy place to find and download it. Another technical reference was to be a sheet explaining to employees how to connect to the intranet from home or on the road.
  • Newsletters. For some time, M&J published a monthly newsletter with basic news about the company and its employees. The cost of creating and distributing this newsletter had recently become relatively high because of the large amount of information involved. Besides being costly, it was time-consuming and proved to be an inefficient way to disperse information. By the time the facts were culled and combined from all three offices, the newsletter was printed and distributed to each location, and people actually read the newsletter, it was out of date. M&J hoped to alleviate this problem by publishing the newsletter online.
  • Contact lists. The three offices in the same general region of the country tended to use similar vendors and contractors to perform various functions. There was also a significant overlap in networking contacts among the three offices. One of the solutions M&J wanted to provide with the intranet was a way to organize these contacts and keep them updated in a central location, but available for anyone to access. M&J hoped to create and keep current a contact list on the intranet.
  • Message boards. With three offices and 75 accountants, the amount of phone tag, faxing, and missed communications had caused a great deal of inefficiency and lost productivity. Instead of being able to walk down the hall and ask a question, associates now had to try to track down the experts in any given field to get answers to even basic questions. M&J hoped to provide a solution to that problem by providing threaded message boards on the intranet site so that conversations could be maintained regardless of time and location.
  • File server. For some time, M&J had been providing a central storage area for individual files and documents on the network. M&J hoped to provide greater access to this file server by making it available on the intranet.
  • Research. M&J hoped to also be able to provide greater access to research materials, be they files or documents, by making them available on the intranet.

Level Three: Interactive Communications

At their most dynamic, intranets offer a medium for real-time collaboration, creating secure platforms for interactive intraorganizational communications. An intranet functions independently of traditional boundaries. In effect, the intranet creates a community, and the only rules governing it are those of the sponsoring organization.

One aerospace company engaged in extensive research and development uses its intranet to encourage cooperation among technical experts in different divisions. Historically, these specialists have worked in isolation, each focusing on a single component of a prototype commercial aircraft. Over time, senior management recognized that this work pattern created barriers to productivity and promoted fighting among divisions and department heads, as opposed to healthy competition. Management needed a way to break down these barriers, establish a common vision, and restore a functioning sense of the common goal-in this case, building a new airplane.

This company's intranet provided a means to this end. But first, top management had to make it clear that the company meant business about changing its ways, and not only supported but required tangible collaboration among its divisions. They realized that simply making the intranet available wasn't enough; making it vital and dynamic required laying groundwork in advance, with division leaders as well as with the technical experts reporting to them.

The company's level three intranet is divided into sectors, each of which represents an individual project, but each of which easily links to its counterparts. Each project has an R&D team whose members are in a defined intranet user group with access to all project information. The initial reaction among users was cautious and skeptical-old habits die hard-and division leaders were often called upon to stimulate usage of the site by calling online meetings and posting current information, as shown in Figure 2.7.

Figure 2.7: An online meeting brought to you by an intranet.

In this case, technical curiosity won out, led by the company's software engineers. Their interest in the intranet's underlying technology and its potential applications prompted them to explore and use it. As more and more users have come onboard, the site itself has become increasingly sophisticated, reflecting their usage and ideas. Interactive software lets users view and modify technical drawings, conduct real-time conferences (see Figure 2.8), and generate animated simulations of various aircraft features currently under development. Senior management credits the intranet not only for improving productivity, but also with enhancing the company's ability to attract and motivate high-end technical talent.

Figure 2.8: Intranet users can choose from a menu of audio and video options.

A company in the consumer healthcare products industry routinely brings together multidisciplinary teams to focus on the launch of new products. Traditionally, the process had been linear: Research and Development comes up with the idea, Product Development makes and tests a prototype, Marketing tests the product, Manufacturing produces the product, Advertising promotes the product, and Sales sells the product.

Today, thanks to its intranet, this company has adopted a more dynamic approach-one that takes better advantage of a broad range of in-house and contractor expertise. Each product category has a project team, consisting of members from each of the relevant disciplines. Although the level of a given individual's involvement varies significantly over the product life cycle, the intranet allows the full team to keep abreast of developments and bring in additional expertise as needed.

Under this new approach, planning for the product launch begins early-during research and development instead of after the fact. This lets marketing experts have input into the product before the prototype is manufactured, saving time and money. The Marketing staff in this company uses the intranet to distribute consumer preference surveys and other research to the full project team as well as to solicit their input into market research.

The company's advertising agency (which is in another city) is also part of the intranet team and uses the site to display its work in progress, in both graphical and video form. Once the core team has signed off, the company's attorneys log on to review all materials prior to production.

As the launch date approaches, other contractors come online, including the company's public relations firm, media buyers, and event planners. Using customized project-management software, the group can create a detailed work plan, assign tasks, display budget estimates, and eliminate scheduling conflicts, in a format that can be constantly updated to reflect changing events or new information.

The same site also is used to track results-in this case, media coverage, information requests, and customer orders. Once the launch is complete, all work products are cached into a searchable archive so that the next product team can draw on them as needed. Documenting the process from start to finish lets the company learn from experience and also, in some cases, respond affirmatively to challenges from competitors.

In the social services arena, one U.S. organization hopes to use a level three intranet to form a coalition with counterparts in a related field to develop a cohesive fundraising strategy and launch a national campaign. In this case, multiple organizations serve a single target population-inner-city youth-by means of many different programs, including job readiness, peer counseling, remedial education, and emergency family intervention. Rather than compete for increasingly scarce corporate and individual contributions, this organization hopes to forge alliances with others that have similar, but not competing, goals.

The intranet medium offers this organization the opportunity to reach out to potential partners-quickly and privately-and to assess the viability of a collaborative effort at the peer level. By conducting a moderated controlled-access conference of executive directors, the agency can make its case, elicit comments, and respond to input in real time, enabling a faster and sounder decision than would have been possible through conventional means. At the same time, the intranet lays the groundwork for future collaboration and information exchange among different organizations that share a common goal.

In contrast, intranets have allowed a major industry association to bring its members together to support an international regulatory initiative. In this instance, the alliance already existed, but focus was lacking. This association has a relatively mature intranet, in the sense that some 200 users access and post to it daily. Numerous task-specific conferences reside on the site, and users regularly suggest new links, information sources, and automation features.

Thus, when the opportunity arose to act in concert, members of this association were well prepared. Users quickly established an intranet-based task group comprising government affairs representatives from each of nine countries and a counterpart user group of technical experts to define the association's position from a scientific point of view. The site sponsor established two-way linkages from a restricted-access sector to the appropriate oversight agency in each affected country, allowing the task groups to download breaking news about the initiative and to organize online briefing sessions for agency officials.

In all of these cases, intranet applications helped facilitate the necessary collaboration by dramatically streamlining the process. Currently available technology lets intranet users exchange, store, and modify information in text, audio, and video form. This means that a user group can review, edit, and create a full range of materials online, as opposed to the more conventional collaborative methods such as meetings and conference calls. In addition, an intranet makes it possible to preserve and archive group deliberations.

The Noncommercial Application of Intranets

This book talks a lot about companies utilizing intranets to sell a product. However, thousands of established businesses sell a service; included in this category are trade and advocacy associations. Because information and resources often are what drive these associations, a great need exists to categorize and centralize the information and resources that are provided to the associations' customers or members. Associations shouldn't overlook the intranet when considering how the latest technology can affect the way in which they provide services to their members. In fact, intranets really should be the first consideration in these cases. Following are some examples that show how an association might utilize an intranet to centralize communications and reduce redundant staff efforts to better serve its mission and its members:

THE SPORTING GOODS AND APPAREL ASSOCIATION
The goal of the Sporting Goods and Apparel Association was much different. Instead of providing a way to keep their "community" together by offering greater access to information and communication, the SGAA hoped to create a new community among its members. To that end, the SGAA wanted to provide a way for members to share news items, to converse in real time or in a message board format, to share and collaborate on documents, to discuss association business in private, to provide a reference resource, and to facilitate networking. They also hoped to provide a way for members to conduct business in this new medium-at first by providing pricing information and availability, and hopefully in the future to secure online commerce.
  • News. On a daily basis, SGAA staff had combed through various resources, including magazines, newspapers, Web sites, and e-mail mailing lists for infor-mation that would be of use to their members. In the past, this news had been distributed on a monthly basis through "Play Ball," their newsletter. By using this new resource, the SGAA hoped to provide up-to-the-day (if not up-to-the-minute) news and information for their members.
  • Chat. Because of the geographic diversity of SGAA members, sometimes networking was expensive because of phone calls, faxes, and FedExes. To alleviate part of this burden, the SGAA hoped to develop a real-time chat function that would let members network online in real time for the cost of a local phone call. Another use for this technology was to have online meetings and forums. In the past, this was done through conference calls, but this was expensive, and no more than a dozen people could effectively participate in a conference call. An unlimited number of members could participate in, or at least listen in on, an online real-time chat. In the future, the SGAA hoped to implement audio conferencing and/or video conferencing on the site.
  • Document sharing. The SGAA wanted to provide a quick and easy way for members to share and collaborate on documents such as press releases, spec sheets, and legislative issues. The intranet was to provide a resource for different organizations to share in the creation and editing of these documents without the cost and time factor of FedExes and mail.
  • Message boards. The association hoped to provide a forum for members to communicate on a wide range of issues, from manufacturing to sales to distribution. For instance, if a manufacturer wanted feedback on a product from several distributors and resellers, online message boards could provide a way for that feedback to be garnered and used to make the product better and more marketable.
  • Private message boards. The association also hoped to provide a way for the executive committee to exchange ideas, comments, and concerns about association business outside of the view of the rest of the association and without the expense of a conference or in-person meeting. Private message boards would let the two-dozen-member committee discuss topics such as budget, steering, and new member enrollment.
  • Contact database. With members all over North America, and with 15,000 employees of the various member companies changing job titles, phone numbers, and addresses, it was difficult for the association to provide an efficient way for its members to network. The more traditional method of publishing an annual membership directory was expensive and time-consuming. The goal of the contact database portion of the intranet was to facilitate networking among the members' companies and their employees.
  • Reference. Because of the wide range of interests of the various members, the SGAA wanted to provide an online resource for reference purposes. Because much of the information that was of interest to the member firms was available on the Internet, the association felt that an efficient way to provide this resource was to create a hierarchical list of Internet links, much like Yahoo! Does for the general Internet.
  • Commerce. As a first step toward providing a gateway to online commerce between its members, the SGAA hoped to provide a secure place for pricing information to be made available from manufacturer to distributor and from distributor to reseller. However, because different sellers charged different prices to different buyers, this was going to be a complicated and delicate endeavor.

Summary

Example after example reveals that there is something for everyone within an intranet. The level to which you choose to take your intranet will determine how it affects your organization's work. Regardless of the level to which you take your intranet, you soon will witness its evolution into a unique communications forum. If you choose to utilize your intranet strictly to display general information and share business data, make sure that you design your intranet with the end in mind. If you later decide that you want to expand to the level of interactive communications, your solid foundation will support this interactive level.