Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The changing role of the corporate intranet

The intranet used to be a way to communicate to your workforce about your company. This role is changing fast. The '2.0' movement on the internet is forcing companies to add more interaction to the intranet. Another factor is the move of allmost every enterprise information system to browser based clients. This blurs the line between the intranet and information systems.

The interaction component makes it possible to actually do work on the intranet. Most companies are moving to more knowledge intensive and collaborative work. And companies are using people from outside the company to add knowledge. This requires a environment that is accessible from all over the world and from multiple places inside and outside the office. An enterprise 2.0 environment is excellent to replace the current static intranet. A good enterprise 2.0 environment delevers capablilities to share knowledge and collaborate outside the company, inside and accross organizational borders.

The move to more browser based clients made by allmost every enterprise class information system (like SAP, Peoplesoft or Filenet) is blurring the borders between the intranet and makes it possible to have more integration. This integration is about adding links between pieces of content or forms or wathever. These links can be very valueble and timesaving. By linking every part of IT together it makes a true web of services and content inside the organization (i.e. an intanet!). This makes it possible to execute business processes on the corporate intranet.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I completely agree with the trend you're describing. However, I don't think the traditional companies you mention will fully address this change. I find that non-traditional companies and open sources solutions seem to understand and address this change. And more and more integrate seamlessly with traditional systems. Or am I mistaken? Anyway, it would be interesting to hear from you which tools companies you know are using to implement such a new engaging intranet.

Robbert said...

@ Samuel, I guess the traditional enterprise software suppliers will make this change. Maybee not in the most radical way. Companies like Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft are trying to deliver E2.0 capabilities in their intranet/portal solutions.

The winners for now in the big e2.0 suppliers will be IBM with connections 2.0 and Microsoft with Sharepoint.

What are your experiences with these tools?

Unknown said...

Jep, the traditional companies are trying and their change is interesting to follow. We are rolling out Sharepoint, in the first place for basis collaboration support and light-weight document management. Not so much for the web 2.0 stuff.