Intranets move away from being costly solutions

Developing, implementing and maintaining intranet solutions can be really expensive, and the ongoing costs associated with outsourcing can easily run out of control. For this reason, large organisations have traditionally built and maintained intranets internally, especially those with a number of diverse requirements and divisions.

However, according to Migal van As, MD of Intervate, innovator of browser-based software applications, "Intranets could cost a lot less if the majority of the functionality was available to companies as a packaged solution. The same levels of flexibility can be achieved as with custom developments, but at a substantially reduced cost, providing that the solution is built using industry standards and is designed for extensibility. The addition of RAD (rapid application tools) allows companies to rapidly deploy the majority of their requirements from a packaged product and then to cost effectively develop additional requirements as an extension to the base product.

Van As goes on to say that there is a definite trend in the IT sector now to offer `out-of-the-box` solutions for most IT requirements. "In the past, IT projects were very often driven by IT. Essentially, IT presumed the business needs and would make product/technology and in-source/out-source decisions based on their own analysis of these needs - technology for the sake of technology scenarios. Today, however, business requirements are increasingly being created on a consumer level. These requirements are then passed on to the business for definition and only then are they passed on to IT for delivery."

"This process is increasingly becoming the responsibility of company officers such as CIO`s and CTO`s, who`s role it is to bridge the gap between IT and business needs and investigate the most cost effective solutions for the business. Only in the past few years have these become serious positions in South Africa where proper decision making at a high level for business relating to information management and technology is made in the organisation, and with organisations currently focussing on ways of reducing IT expenditure, `out-of-the-box` applications are bound to be highly attractive, as well as the first ports of call for companies and their CIOs and CTOs looking for IT solutions."

Another area of keen interest to organisations is that of development partners for existing solutions. "These partners are able to build modules on existing frameworks and offer them as packaged products to organisations who have a specific need for them", says van As. "In the intranet space, for example, there is scope for developing generic modules such as time sheeting, KPIs, training, libraries and general HR functions. Once again this `out-of-the-box` approach reduces costs for companies."