Poor content, poor portal ...

An enterprise portal offers a single interface to multiple, digital information sources or systems. Normally operating via a browser, it uses programs known as portlets to connect to the other systems, and to deliver an appropriate display within the portal.

In the past 18 months or so, portals have become de rigueur, sold by the major players on such key benefits as:

• Simplified management and administration
• Ease of access
• Security
• Performance enhancement.

In spite of the economic downturn, interest in portals appears to have held steady and, while procurement cycles have been extended, and the required business cases are becoming more detailed, enterprise portals are still being purchased and deployed, especially by larger organisations. But are they being sold on the right benefits?

What really makes a portal valuable?
The long-term value proposition for a portal - the real advantage it can offer to an organisation - is that it will become the core IT infrastructure.

If an individual is accessing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system via a portlet in the portal, it does not matter whether the ERP system is to be found in the local computer room, at a remote data centre or even outsourced.

As the portlet gives a customised view of the application, it is possible to change the underlying ERP system with no visible, and therefore potentially disruptive, change for the individual.

At Butler Group we have seen a number of successful portals in operation. Sadly, we have also witnessed a number of situations where, as with many IT deployments, the return on the investment - the four key claims cited above - will not be achieved.

We have seen many organisations deploy portals for tactical reasons believing that, by allowing an individual to access multiple systems easily from a single screen, they will be more efficient.

But for the organisation to gain the benefits from this investment, employees, partners or customers have to recognise that the portal is the core IT infrastructure.

They have to have the motivation to use the portal, to believe that it will benefit them and so want to stay within it for as much time as possible.

Creating a sticky portal
The big issue here is 'stickiness'. For example, the commercially oriented internet portal Yahoo, currently the world's number one internet site, has added a range of functionality for users such as Personals and Auctions, to attract regular access and so drive advertising revenues.

This is not to suggest that all organisations need to provide a dating service to get an individual's attention, but it does show that having the right 'content' - information that is useful to the individual, either work-related or personal - is key to success.

So what else can help with stickiness? Email is the one type of content that all organisations deploying a portal will currently have. It is not, as an organisation suggested to me only last week, "a directory of all employees, their titles and their locations, and a copy of all company policies"!

It should be no surprise that Yahoo offers web email too.

Another application that has been seen as a success in business-to-employee portals is self-service personnel functionality, such as updating bank or address details.

This is not truly 'sticky', however, as the individual will normally only undertake such actions infrequently.

As part of the stickiness issue, many portal vendors emphasise the 'personalisation' that a user can undertake within a portal as a way of adding value to their experience.

Our research suggests, however, that personalisation is seen only as a 'nice-to-have', not a 'need-to-have'.

Most users are not actually that interested in colouring or reorganising their desktops. They have been able to do such things with Windows for years and, apart from the odd family photo or Formula 1 logo, most have stuck to the standard Windows colours and the standard Windows sound on start up. Similarly, only a small number of people personalise via MyYahoo.

Seek and you shall find ...
One thing that people do go to Yahoo for is its search facility, currently purchased from Google.

When you consider that employees can spend an estimated 10 hours a week in search of pertinent information, digitally stored or otherwise, search and retrieval is clearly important within organisations.

Most enterprise portals include a repository and a sophisticated search function, potentially provided by a third party, to assist in this process, and this can certainly make the individual, and therefore the organisation, more effective.

In general, however, there are often limits to the type and range of documents that can be accessed, and this is where Butler Group believes a major step in portal development is taking place.

Content is becoming the differentiating factor. While we have the delivery mechanism in the form of the portal there is not generally the integration with, and seamless access to, the wide variety of pertinent content that will add stickiness for the individual, whether employee, partner or customer.

Content is crowned king again
Many portal vendors are lining up in support of the content argument. Microsoft will be tying its Content Management Server very closely to the next release of SharePoint, for instance.

Plumtree, perceived as the most successful of the pure-play vendors, has released version 4.0 of its Content Server, and announced in mid-October 2002 that it is teaming with Oblix and content management provider Documentum to offer what it is calling The Enterprise Web.

And in the same month, content management vendor Vignette purchased the number two pure-play vendor Epicentric.

IT aside, the logic of more closely aligning and integrating portal with content is very sound. With its moving roof, Cardiff's Millennium Stadium is a wonderful building, for instance. That is infrastructure.

But to attract people into the seats and to justify the investment, there needs to be something in the centre, either a sporting event or a pop star. That's content.

ABOUT THE BUTLER GROUP
Butler Group, the independent IT research and advisory organisation, informs IT and business managers on current, emerging and future technology matters, and their impact on business.

Butler Group delivers a broad spectrum of research, analysis and advice on all issues surrounding the practical application of technology in business. Analysis is available via direct access to experts, written research and conferences.

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