A Look Through the PORTAL - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Business are rapidly adopting e-business portals--utilizing various strategies and portal tools--as a way to provide a single access point and information interface to the company, both inside and outside the firewall.

INFORMATION CAN BE A BLESSING--or a curse. That's one of the lessons of the Information Age. Having the information you need when you need it makes life easier. But sifting through reams of unstructured data when you just want to know one little thing is an exercise in frustration.

This blessing-curse quality of information was manifest in the explosion of the Web. It wasn't long after the Web was up and running that the proliferation of sites caused simple Web searches to return page after page of ostensibly relevant URLs. The value of the Web became diluted by the sheer volume of information available. Some way to organize and manage all that information was necessary to restore its value.

Existing search engines like Yahoo! and Excite stepped up to this challenge and became the first Internet portals. These sites showed the value of a browser-based, single access point for disparate (and often voluminous) information. The convenience of a Web browser, the power of structuring data (through categorization and other means), and the simplicity of collecting various access paths in one common starting point all produced a powerful information-management tool.

The growth of e-business just a few years later created its own information glut. In addition to all the external Web information (that had continued to grow like crazy), there was now an increasing bounty of internal information. Connecting to customers through Web storefronts, and to suppliers through supply-chain management systems, generated that much more information to be included in day-to-day decisions. Faced with the same problem that had plagued the Web--voluminous, disparate information--e-businesses turned to the same solution: portals. Since then portals have become a permanent fixture in the e-business world.

First Information Then Transactions

Among the first uses of an e-business portal was for human resources. Just as the earliest Web-based e-business application--brochureware--was purely a communication function, so, too, HR portals initially served to communicate HR information. The advantage of HR portals, usually hosted on a company's intranet, was to provide employees with a single access point, or "gateway," to all HR information. Once these gateways were established, it was only natural to add to their usefulness by including processing capabilities alongside their pure communication features. Allowing employees to submit benefit requests, manage their personal HR information, and enroll in benefit plans, as well as retrieve information, made these portals complete self-service HR transaction centers.

Portals subsequently used in other areas followed a similar path--first information, then transactions. Portals were no longer simply single access points for information; they were becoming the standard interface for all information activities in an application space. This leap in capability made portals applicable to many more information needs.

Versatile and Evolving

Today, portals play a role in all links in the business chain. For example, Staples.com, Cisco Systems, and Dell Computer Corp. provide qualifying customers with purchasing portals customized for each customer's needs. Ford Motor Company's suppliers check material releases and payment information on Ford's FSN (Ford Supplier Network). HR information at Anheuser-Busch and Wells Fargo & Company is managed through a portal. And e-Steel Exchange uses a portal as the platform for its Web-based steel marketplace.

Clearly, portals are far more versatile than their initial use for data consolidation. Nonetheless, the key behind just about all portal strategies is to use the portal as the single access point for a particular type of information or information processing. Providing a single access point simplifies users' jobs. Once the portal is established, all users know that office-supply procurement, say, or supply-chain data for certain customers, will be found through the portal.

The Customer Interface

The first advantage of using a portal is simplicity, which is often the driving reason behind portal development. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Computer's Premier Pages grew out of the need to provide customers with a simple, convenient channel for purchasing Dell products.

Most medium to large Dell customers make regular purchases of approved computer configurations and other products. One-off purchases of products not on the approved list are the exception. Obviously, these customers would prefer to see just approved products on their everyday purchasing screens and access the complete product catalog only when making one-off purchases.

This was the original focus of Dell's Premier Pages. Over time, Premier Pages evolved into an increasingly complete electronic customer interface. During this evolution, Dell changed the name to Premier Dell.com (see www.dell.com/premierdemo).

The central function is still online procurement. The Premier Online Store (one of the functions accessed through Premier Dell.com) displays the customer's standard configurations and contract prices, and also provides access to the complete online catalog for one-off purchases. Other functions available through the Premier Dell.com portal include order status, employee-purchase function (if applicable), communication with the customer's account team and Deli support, and general links to news and information about Dell.

A security administrator, who comes from the customer's staff, controls access to specific functions and information. The security administrator can specify different levels of access to information and assign access authority by user name. A manager might have access to all functions, while a purchasing clerk might only have purchase-order entry and order-tracking functions.

Premier Dell.com allows each user to create a personalized interface by setting up a profile that includes the user's favorite functions and any constant data (name, department, etc.) such as that which might be used to populate forms.

Premier Dell.com supports purchasing workflow with its E-Quote feature. Users can request a quote, save it online, and send a copy up the line for approval. Those with approval authority receive e-mail notification of outstanding E-Quotes and can review, approve, and submit E-Quotes through Premier Dell.com.

Order status is available online and the OrderWatch function will even send designated users e-mail notification when the order ships. If the carrier provides order-tracking information over the Internet, Dell includes this information in its order-tracking function. Premier Dell.com customers can also check purchasing history and review open invoices through the portal.

Qualifying customers can use Dell's ImageWatch, which alerts customers to how technology changes will affect Dell products, to help make their own technology adoption plans. And Dell's Help Tech feature gives customers' help-desk staffs online access to the same technical support information used by Dell's technicians.

Dell's Premier Dell.com displays a tendency common to portals from the beginning--an ever-widening span of coverage. Although the original Premiere Pages started as a purchasing portal, Premier Dell.com is now a complete customer-interface portal.

Portals for the Few

Portals are not always about serving a large number of users, though. Sometimes portals' single-point consolidation is used to support a relatively small number of specialists. This is often used in HR portal applications where a few HR specialists use portals to better serve the rest of the company's employees.

Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis-based brewery, used this model when it found itself approaching the annual enrollment period for its benefits package. Anticipating a large surge in queries, the company replaced its manual query processing with Authoria HR, an HR portal from Authoria Inc., Waltham, Mass. (www.authoria.com).

Authoria HR allowed Anheuser-Busch to build a repository of HR data to replace a hodgepodge of paper reports, electronic spreadsheets, and benefit summaries that had been the source of answers to employees' questions. Since the company already had HRMS software from SAP and call-tracking software from Dublin, Calif.-based Quintus Corp. installed, Authoria had to integrate with those products, as well.

The initial rollout was designed for HR specialists in Anheuser-Busch's call center, but the ultimate goal is to allow employees to research their own HR questions through a browser-based interface. Either way, the portal consolidates information and provides the tools that allow employees to answer their HR questions directly and efficiently.

In another example, Staples@work uses Plumtree Corporate Portal from Plumtree Software, San Francisco, to deliver HR information to its employees.

The power of this simple idea of consolidating disparate information shows up over and over again. For example, banking powerhouse Wells Fargo & Company, Sioux Falls, S.D., used an HR portal to simplify its merger with Norwest Corp.

The merger meant that 90,000 employees would move to a new benefits plan. Like Anheuser-Busch, HR service representatives working in a central call center must process HR questions from the rest of the company. Providing these representatives with a portal that manages complex, disparate, and, in some cases, yet-to-be-created information was essential to allow them to handle the volume of requests accurately and efficiently.

In what is a natural evolution, the ultimate goal for Wells Fargo's HR portal is to roll it out as an employee self-service HR portal. It's hard to imagine giving all employees access to typically convoluted HR information without the power of a portal keeping everything organized.

Linking the Supply Chain

Suppliers are another ready audience for portals. In many industries, constantly changing manufacturing plans result in constantly changing material releases, whipsawing suppliers who are fighting to keep up. Detroit-based Ford Motor Company and other large manufacturers have turned to supplier portals to communicate material releases and other manufacturing data. Quality metrics, engineering and engineering changes, invoice payment status, and other manufacturer-supplier data are available on suppliers' portals.

Supplier portals can also be one link in a complete Web-enabled business chain. Bellevue, Wash.-based specialty chemical e-distributor ChemPoint.com uses the PureEcommerce Supplier Portal from Yantra Corp., Acton, Mass. (www.yantra.com) in conjunction with other e-commerce software to automate its entire business chain.

One of ChemPoint's challenges was to link suppliers with a broad range of technical sophistication. Some suppliers run full-blown ERP systems, while others don't have much more than PCs and Internet access. A portal's browser-based interface is tailor-made for this type of application.

Once online, suppliers use the portal to send and receive information. They send product information, material-safety data sheets (essential in the chemical industry), and inventory data; they receive order information. The portal also provides access to ChemPoint's direct-sales staff, promoting a tighter link between ChemPoint and its suppliers than what is often found in a supplier-distributor relationship.

Online office-supply retailer Staples.com, Framingham, Mass., is another example of a company trying to automate as much of its complete business chain as possible. StaplesLink.com is a procurement portal that allows corporate buyers to purchase office supplies according to contracted prices and terms. StaplesPartners.com gives suppliers purchase-order data, delivery requirements, and performance metrics.

And there are still cases where portals are used strictly for information sharing. Renault V.I./Mack Group (www.renaultvi-mack.com), for example, provides an information-only portal for its suppliers.

Portal as Platform

It seems that there is no end to the use of portals. One of the more surprising applications is for e-marketplaces, where a portal acts as the marketplace where buyers and sellers meet. These are often vertical industry portals, but horizontal portals also exist. (For more about e-marketplaces, see "Which B2B Exchange is Right for You?" p. 30.)

New York City-based e-Steel Exchange (www.e-steel.com) is a steel-industry portal. It offers industry news, decision-making tools, and an electronic exchange. Both buyers and sellers use e-Steel Exchange. In its total solution e-Steel uses various products; Yantra's PureEcommerce Supplier Portal is the most prominent portal tool.

Buyers can log on to their accounts and make purchases in two ways: They can request bids by issuing an online inquiry or they can buy from sellers' online offerings. In the first case, the buyer specifies product specs, payment, and delivery terms, and submits the inquiry. The buyer can decide to submit the inquiry to a specific seller, a few selected sellers, all e-Steel sellers except those specifically excluded, or all sellers. This gives the buyer total control over distribution of the information contained in the inquiry.

In the case of using sellers' online offerings, the buyer reviews existing offerings, makes a selection, and enters into negotiations with the seller. In either case, e-Steel tracks the negotiation and records the final agreement, which is transmitted to both parties as confirmation.

Sellers are a mirror-image of buyers on e-Steel. They can sell products by searching for inquiries to bid on, or they can offer prespecified steel to buyers. Also like the buyers, they can deal with sellers on a one-to-one, one-to-many, one-to-all-but-the-exceptions, or one-to-all basis.

The e-Steel Exchange even shows that it is possible to make money with a portal: It charges sellers a flat 0.875% transaction fee on each completed sale.

In contrast to e-Steel's vertical application, eScout (www.escout.com) is a horizontal small-business portal. Based in Lee's Summit, Mo., eScout provides its members with Web-based buying, selling, auctions, and business information. Where applicable, eScout acts as a buyers' cooperative, aggregating orders in order to obtain volume discounts for its buying members.

Portals still take on classic EIS (executive information system) tasks, too. For example, Alaska Airlines uses Brio.Enterprise from Brio Technology, Palo Alto, Calif., to enable users to do more of their own analysis for decision-making. Alaska Air's marketing, planning, and yield-management departments are the primary users of Brio.Enterprise.

When a Portal Is Right

Portals were developed to provide a single access point to information, and this is still the core to all portals. The central strategic issue is how to leverage this single access point to the fullest. Personalizing the portal according to customer, supplier, or employee needs is generally one key to an effective portal strategy. Besides ensuring that the portal user has convenient access to essential information, providing the analytic and transaction-processing functions necessary to act on that information closes the loop and makes the portal essential to everyday activities.

There's nothing magical about portals, and neither is deciding where they are applicable. If you need to provide a single access point to disparate, voluminous information and the applications that process it, a portal is the answer. Of course, most of us face just this situation. Now, if we only had a portal for all those portals!

Chris Pickering is a senior consultant on Cuter Consortium's Business-IT Strategies Service and the president of Systems Development Inc., a research and consulting firm. He is the author of Cuter's recent E-Business: Trends, Strategies, and Technologies, as well as the periodic Survey of Advanced Technology, and a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

                        Representative Portal Tools
Company                 Product                  Web Site
Active Navigation Inc.  Portal Maximizer 2       activenavigation.com
AlphaBlox Corp.         AlphaBlox 3              alphablox.com
Authoria Inc.           Authoria HR              authoria.com
Brio Technology Inc.    Brio.Portal              brio.com
Business Objects SA     InfoView                 businessobjects.com
Cognos Inc.             Upfront                  cognos.com
CoreChange              Coreport                 corechange.com
CoVia Technologies Inc. InfoPortal               covia.com
Digital Cement Inc.     Digital Cement           digitalcement.com
Documentum              4i Portal Content        documentum.com
                          Management (PCM)
Epicentric Inc.         Epicentric Portal        epicentric.com
                          Server 3
Framework Technologies  Active Project           frametech.com
Hummingbird Ltd.        Hummingbird EIP          hummingbird.com
IBM Corp.               IBM Enterprise           ibm.com
                          Information Portal
Infolmage Inc.          Freedom                  infoimage.com
Iona Technologies       iPortal Suite            iona.com
Knowledge Track Corp.   KnowledgeCenter          knowledgetrack.com
Mesa Systems Intl.      MesaVista Product        mesavista.com
                          Development Portal
Oracle Corp.            Oracle Portal            oracle.com/portals/
Plumtree Software       Corporate Portal         plumtree.com
Portal Wave Inc.        Portal Wave              portalwave.com
SageMaker               SageWave                 sagemaker.com
Sagent Technology Inc.  Sagent Portal            sagent.com
Sequoia Software        Sequoia XPS              sequoiasoftware.com
Sybase Inc.             Sybase Enterprise Portal sybase.com
Trigo Technologies Inc. Trigo Enterprise         trigo.com
                         Platform
Verity Inc.             Verity Portal One        verity.com
Viador Inc.             E-Portal Framework       viador.com
Yantra Corp.            PureEcommerce            yantra.com
                          Supplier Portal
Company                 Location
Active Navigation Inc.  San Francisco
AlphaBlox Corp.         Mountain View, Calif.
Authoria Inc.           Waltham, Mass.
Brio Technology Inc.    Palo Alto, Calif.
Business Objects SA     San Jose, Calif.
Cognos Inc.             Burlington, Mass.
CoreChange              Boston
CoVia Technologies Inc. Mountain View, Calif.
Digital Cement Inc.     Westborough, Mass.
Documentum              Pleasanton, Calif.
Epicentric Inc.         San Francisco
Framework Technologies  Burlington, Mass.
Hummingbird Ltd.        Toronto, Ontario
IBM Corp.               Armonk, N.Y.
Infolmage Inc.          Phoenix, Ariz.
Iona Technologies       Waltham, Mass.
Knowledge Track Corp.   Pleasanton, Calif.
Mesa Systems Intl.      Warwick, R.I.
Oracle Corp.            Redwood Shores, Calif.
Plumtree Software       San Francisco
Portal Wave Inc.        Mountain View, Calif.
SageMaker               Fairfield, Conn.
Sagent Technology Inc.  Mountain View, Calif.
Sequoia Software        Columbia, Md.
Sybase Inc.             Emeryville, Calif.
Trigo Technologies Inc. Brisbane, Calif.
Verity Inc.             Sunnyvale, Calif.
Viador Inc.             Mountain View, Calif.
Yantra Corp.            Acton, Mass.
Company                 Comments
Active Navigation Inc.  Search product features advanced navigation
                        and automatic categorization of content.
AlphaBlox Corp.         Solution provides analysis of
                        relational and Hyperion OLAP data.
Authoria Inc.           Human resources knowledge base
                        offers employee self-service.
                        The suite's two modules are
                        benefits and policies.
Brio Technology Inc.    Part of Brio One BI suite. Portal
                        features customizable proactive agents.
                        "Job Factories" execute applications
                        and access back-end databases.
Business Objects SA     Serves as standalone BI portal
                        as well as a BI-content provider
                        for enterprise information portals (EIP).
Cognos Inc.             Portal service that provides users
                        with personalized access to
                        Cognos BI and other content, and
                        the ability to publish content
CoreChange              Role-based framework, supports
                        mobile, wireless users.
CoVia Technologies Inc. Product features JIT collaboration
                        portals without IT support.
                        Features include calendaring and
                        private-label e-mail messaging.
Digital Cement Inc.     Marketing solultion that enables
                        a customer-focused Web
                        that manages content aimed at
                        an organizations' customers.
Documentum              This content management vendor has
                        partnered with portal vendors
                        and will offer a portal tool
                        based on its 4i platform (Q12001).
                        Documentum currently offers, iTeam, a
                        project collaboration portal.
Epicentric Inc.         Modular framework for building
                        multitier e-business networks
                        encompassing customers, suppliers,
                        and distributors.
Framework Technologies  Extranet tool for product development
                        collaboration.
Hummingbird Ltd.        Information portal features "e-Clip,"
                        a plug-in that draws from third-
                        party applications and presents data
                        in the EIP workspace.
IBM Corp.               EIP enables rapid portal app dev and
                        deployment by providing a,
                        consolidated set of APIs. Version 7
                        features access to relational data
                        via connectors to DB2 and any RDB
                        databases and the ability to categorize
                        search results against predefinied taxonomy.
Infolmage Inc.          Enterprise "decision" portal platform
                        offers search and collaboration
                        tools. Decision Mart pertorms traditional
                        data mart functions, but also
                        stores metadata--improving query speed.
Iona Technologies       Integration, development, and Web
                        presentation platform for building
                        portals. Offering was recently enhanced
                        through acquisition of Suplicity.
Knowledge Track Corp.   Personalized platform providing online
                        community (employees, partners,
                        and customers), and legacy data
                        and application integration.
Mesa Systems Intl.      Development portal tool offers
                        collaboration ability for engineering
                        teams including application links
                        and management modules.
Oracle Corp.            Browser-based software environment for
                        building and deploying enterprise
                        portals. Portlets link to apps,
                        Web sites, and BI reports.
Plumtree Software       B2B and B2E portal tool offering
                        productivity tools and featuring "Portal
                        Gadgets" that act as scaled-down
                        applications with limited functions.
                        One such gadget embeds SAP's Cost
                        Center Report on a user's page.
Portal Wave Inc.        Enterprise application portal that offers
                        application integration, bi-directional
                        connectivity, and tailorable workflow.
SageMaker               Industry portals for financial
                        services, insurance, oil and gas,
                        pharmaceutical and biotech, power,
                        and telecommunications.
Sagent Technology Inc.  Product features "Content Delivery
                        Agents" to outside links such as
                        Monster.com and AskJeeves.com. It
                        also offers utility functions
                        such as combining e-mail from
                        multiple sources.
Sequoia Software        XML-based portal server.
Sybase Inc.             Solution provides full spectrum of
                        technologies including systems
                        management, security, content
                        management, and personalization.
Trigo Technologies Inc. Supplier-focused software that
                        optimizes multiple online sales
                        channels, automating the life
                        cycle including catalog customization.
Verity Inc.             Content management portal delivers
                        search, classification, and
                        navigation capabilities.
Viador Inc.             Platform for B2B and B2E portal
                        development and deployment.
                        Portlets integrate apps, productivity,
                        tools, and subscription Web sites.
Yantra Corp.            Portal provides shipping management
                        to its transaction processing
                        suite (PureEcommerce Platform and DCS).

Choosing Portal Tools

Portal tools are as varied as portal strategies. There are tools that simply facilitate data consolidation; there are tools that include business-intelligence functions for the data they consolidate; and there are tools that provide the foundation and the superstructure for integrating data, knowledge management, and transaction processing. This brief discussion of tools shows the wide variety of portal tools available today.

Verity Portal One from Verity Inc. (www.verity.com), Sunnyvale, Calif., is an example of a tool that primarily provides data consolidation. Using Verity Portal One, users can customize their electronic desktops to provide single-point access to the information and applications they need to do their jobs.

Verity Portal One consolidates enterprise and Internet information sources and provides search, navigation, and viewing functions on that information. Users can personalize their desktops on-the-fly to reflect changing work habits. Verity's search function provides full-text search against source documents and the results are formatted in HTML for easy navigation and viewing.

Applications can also be included on the user's electronic desktop, eliminating the need to page back and forth from an information-only portal to the application's native interface. Applications are integrated with the desktop through Connectors.

The XML Factor

XML is a key technology in the leading portal tools. It offers a convenient, standard-based way to integrate heterogeneous applications. Portal users must expect to develop at least some proprietary XML applications if their data sources are at all diverse. Interfaces to common sources, however, are increasingly included by the portal vendors.

Sagent Technology Inc. (www.sagent.com), Mountain View, Calif., for example, includes Content Delivery Agents, or CDAs (its term for connectors) in its Sagent Portal for a number of common interfaces. The list is too long to include here in its entirety, but some of the links to better-known sources include American Express, CNNfn, Monster.com, weather.com, AskJeeves, and The Motley Fool. Sagent Portal also uses CDAs to deliver utility functions such as displaying time and date, calculating travel distances, and blending e-mail from multiple sources. (See www.sagent.com/downloads/Sagent_portal.pdf for the complete list of CDAs.)

Sagent Portal also leverages Sagent's experience as a business-intelligence software vendor. Sagent Portal actually uses Columbia, Md.-based Sequoia Software's XPS (www.sequoiasoftware.com) as its portal engine to extend the utility of its own Sagent Reports and Sagent Analysis products. Moving to a portal model brings with it the advantages of consolidating internal, and external data, as well as the convenience of single-point access. Sagent Portal also makes it convenient for users to utilize the latest information by providing a transparent update mechanism called Smart Spiders. The Spiders traverse enterprise databases and other specified information sources to deliver the most current content to users' portals.

Sequoia Software's XPS can be embedded in other software, as with Sagent Portal, and it can be used as an independent portal. XPS's architecture consists of the XML Application Server (XAS) and the Content Delivery Server (CDS). The XAS communicates with information sources and software applications while the CDS handles presentation duties. This architecture provides the flexibility to allow XPS to work as both an embedded and an independent portal.

Sagent became a portal vendor by building on its business intelligence strengths. Iona Technologies, Waltham, Mass. (www.iona.com) became a portal vendor by using its middleware experience as the foundation. Orbix, Iona's CORBA-compliant ORB and flagship product, is the cornerstone of its iPortal Suite architecture. iPortal Suite provides the tools to build enterprise-class, multiplatform portals.

In addition to ORBIX, iPortal Suite includes iPortal Application Server, iPortal Integration Server, Portal Server, and iPortal OS/390 Server. Each of these products handles a specific part of a typical large-company portal.

Iona iPortal Application Server provides the normal application-server function of hosting application logic. Iona Portal Integration Server is a message-oriented middleware (MOM) product for integrating application systems with the portal. Iona Portal Server manages data presentation, presenting a browser-based interface to employees, customers, and suppliers. Iona iPortal OS/390 server is (obviously) targeted at IBM mainframe systems. It allows them to be integrated into iPortal applications.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Wiesner Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group