Web portals getting more sophisticated to deliver ROI

It’s no longer just about simplifying online access to existing information and services. That remains important, but best portals are now also starting to deliver a world of ‘composite applications’ – allowing self-service beyond multiple information sources, to include otherwise disparate and incompatible applications, and providing everything from security administration upwards, all unified to make it easy. And as adoption begins to grow beyond the big corporates that have been leading development, the market for portals – both internal and collaborative, involving supply chains, partners and customers – will continue to grow, apparently at around 20%. These are among main findings from business portals company Plumtree Software in its fourth annual survey – this time conducted with 110 of the firm’s customers (like Ford, Procter and Gamble, GSK and Starbucks) and six analyst firms, also linking in others’ in-depth research. Indeed, the report synthesises several customer surveys, market share data and technology evaluations. Other useful findings include figures for portal initiative failure rates – which Plumtree believes are around 20% to 30%. It suggests that’s largely due to initiatives that haven’t integrated resources and processes – and are therefore less useful, leaving portals effectively empty. Empowering parts of the business to contribute content and services in a controlled manner, it says, is crucial to success. It backs that assertion again from survey results, which also show integrated applications, project collaboration and knowledge management being ranked first, second and third in terms of return on investment ROI, and therefore value to the companies concerned. And that makes sense in view of the expected balance for portal utilisation between business applications and inter-departmental, inter-application knowledge sharing, working and management. Incidentally, it’s also worth noting that the most popular portal applications are still those around employee self-service of general information (as per HR departments) and integrated sales support. Departmental and work group resource centres and knowledge management are also up there. And so-called ‘executive dashboards’ are also becoming more popular, populated largely with financial information. The research concedes, however, that portal development is not a trivial proposition. Since useful portals don’t just integrate content and applications (itself a task), but also deliver new online services, you need systems engineers, content people and developers.