Enterprise portals - Intranets
Enterprise portals are used for integration of information and unification of access to in-house applications with the aim of increasing the productivity of employees who work with data. A company information portal allows for organisation and sharing of all data, documents and information. It then offers each employee only the information, which is relevant for them.
Enterprise portals also ensure the automatic paperless course of selected processes and provide for better arrangement of the circulation of documents internally and externally. It is then easy for the company to process each order or approve a contract correctly.
Portal platforms allow you to easily define workflow (complete internal processes from beginning to end, all individual activities, decision-making and approval blocks, end outputs or the required input). At the same time, workflow not only solves the standard course of the process, but also ensure all alternatives, when for example the responsible worker is not present or there is a change to their function within the company. For this purpose, workflow is interconnected to the organisation structure. Individual persons can thus dynamically change their role according to the requirements and development of the company without endangering a functioning process. Definition is made of the superiority and subordination of individual persons, their competencies and mutual substitutability.
Enterprise portals are a platform for a standardised method of integration of company information systems (ERP, CRM, CMS and BI etc.). If for example insufficient consolidation of access to data resources and systems in a company leads to loss of productivity at work or if it is necessary to integrate a “foreign” information system (e.g. after acquisition), Enterprise portals provide an architecture, which can interconnect these systems. Enterprise portals are thus able to link systems in a uniform environment, which have communication interface that are not currently compatible. This means that the company does not have to invest into development of already existing applications because the path leads another way – via the portal solution, which uses universal and well tried and tested standards.
If there is a need for remote access by employees to a central application and information, the Enterprise portal is a platform, which ensures secure access via the Internet. Further to this, consideration can also be made of possible connection to various mobile equipment such as for example pocket PCs or mobile telephones. Access to important information can thus be provided for business representatives or managers on business trips.
The frequently integrated Document Management System provides a better overview of the flow of documents within the company and manages adjustment and approval by individual employees. It introduces a well-arranged system among documents with the possibility to search using a wide range of parameters. The history of document creation is visible as well as who participated in document creation or editing and who approved the document. It is possible to establish a discussion forum for individual documents, in which authorised users can make comments on a specific document. It is then a matter of a few moments to find the required information, document, E-mail, fax, letter, contract, invoice, design documentation, scanned document or multimedia file. Without such tools, searching in internal company documents can represent more than 10 % of working hours.
The Enterprise portal is a solution that is “key ready”, which is completely able to utilise your existing data resources or systems and to interconnect them into one comprehensive whole. Enterprise portals do however change the organisation of work and the method of handling company data. For this reason, investment into a Enterprise portal must always be a strategic decision by top management. Asociace.BIZ or any of its members are able to advise you as to which savings portals most frequently provide and how to calculate the economic return of the investment.
