In the most enthusiastically received plenary address at the HP/SAP Tech-Ed this week, the audience lapped up lessons learned by Atos KPMG from its enterprise portal implementation at British American Tobacco (BAT).
The most important lessons concerned knowledge of human behaviour.
In the fact-heavy presentation, Atos KPMG divisional director Andries Louw said the often-misunderstood concept of a portal implied nothing so much as a total re-design of enterprise architecture, a far-flung and complex undertaking.
"And one of the most important lessons one can take away from our experience is that the politics of an organisation will kill the project if you don`t get enterprise-wide buy-in, or if you don`t have a single sponsor and seat of responsibility at the highest level. This single factor is probably what made this 1 600-user portal succeed."
Decisions, decisions
Since the basic technology is "the same" for all kinds of portals, however superficial or extensive the functionality, and since most products have parity today (IBM WebSphere, SAP NetWeaver, etc), one has to decide on the desired portal type first, Louw said.
It can simply be an intranet consolidation, a self-service system such as for leave forms, a single-sign-on to all systems or a true "smart enterprise suite" portal. "This kind connects all systems and data sources such as HR, financial and databases in a single-sign-on interface, giving role-based user access via multiple device channels."
Fifteen portal truths
Atos KPMG advises implementers to remember these points when implementing a portal:
* Decide your e-business strategy beforehand - a portal is too visible a tool to mess up.
* Resolve document management first - a portal won`t do that for you.
* Do you want a big bang or an evolution? You can have a big vision, but a small start is more politically astute.
* Manage expectations.
* Measure soft and hard benefits.
* Manage total cost of ownership or see it spiral out of control.
* Limit the number of roles, possibly using the personalisation component.
* Commit the customer at organisational, divisional and individual level.
* Commit full-time resources and fill this out with consultants.
* Choose implementation partners with proven experience.
* Spend time on an enterprise taxonomy of information.
* Use sufficient server capacity.
* Pilot at the right time.
* Do load testing.
* Use your one opportunity to get buy-in.
Louw said sellers often encountered the objection that buyers already had access to their systems and failed to see what else a portal gave them. But the html demo his firm gave BAT convinced the company that it would tie up all its systems into one interface, effectively removing technology from users, presenting only information in a consistent look and feel.
"Once they see that you can enter the organisational information portal from different ends, with different roles for users, and the other functionality that they get from having one access hub for all systems, including message centre, role-based news feeds or events, your problem will change from inertia to a snowballing of expectations," said Louw. "Then they will want cross-divisional collaboration and management dashboards. The important thing is to build a time of managing expectations into your project."
Cost versus strategy
Louw added that while the cost benefits of consolidating systems into one view are huge, long-term strategic benefits are greater. "Benefits and savings must be communicated and measured, tangible as well as intangible," he said.
"Also, you have to present a simple diagram of where you want to start and where you want it to finish. Politically, it is best to start small, although you may wish to view the big picture from the start. As long as your implementation is scalable to the nth iteration, you can start small."
He also cautioned against costs spiralling out of control. "Start with the portal as information dissemination front-end - a difficult enough undertaking, because it already implies accessing all systems via middleware. Then maybe go to self-service, enterprise integration, and finally workforce collaboration."
Share
