Level Two

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Level Two: Sharing Business Data

In addition to publishing relatively static or historical information, such as annual reports or mission statements, every organization maintains data that is constantly changing. This data might quantify quarterly production, weekly sales, or product inventory; it might document levels of membership or contributions; or it might reflect changes in head count. In addition, many organizations generate prospective data-in the form of sales projections, for example-budget forecasts, or progress reports on new projects. See Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5: An interoffice memo posted on and distributed via an intranet.

At level two, intranets can help organizations manage these frequently modified (and often proprietary) data through their residence on powerful databases such as Oracle. These databases permit maximum capacity for facilitating quick changes to intranet site content, often through automated means.

For example, many computer superstores with chains in many cities or a region use shared databases to track inventory and sales. If you've ever been told that the store you're in doesn't have the product in stock but another location does, you've benefited from an intranet. Each store keeps its own inventory and updates it to a central database. Some stores perform updates nightly or weekly; some perform them up-to-the-minute. With a direct connection between the stores, keeping a common inventory list can be a relatively simple procedure. Then, each store knows what all the other stores have in stock and can provide a much greater level of customer service.

BIKES USA

Bikes USA, a growing regional bike retailer with 11 locations throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, and North Carolina, is an example of a company that, whether it realizes it or not, has reached level two of an intranet and likely will soon evolve to level three.

In February of 1995, the company began designing a computer system that could better serve both its existing and future stores as well as its growing customer base. In building the new system, the company wanted to leave behind several headaches, including those of redundant orders due to an inability among stores to communicate with each other. For example, because the stores couldn't access a main database with inventory data, one store would special-order a product that was unavailable at its location but that was in stock at another location. This was both costly for the company and time-consuming for the stores' sales associates. Similarly, if one store issued a gift certificate or store credit, the other locations had no way of knowing about this transaction, which meant time-consuming paperwork if the consumer chose to cash in the certificate or credit at another location. And, when it came to transferring products among stores, sales associates had no way to track the status of shipments for cus-tomers.

Now all 11 Bikes USA locations are connected to the company's main server at its Alexandria, Va., headquarters. This connection lets sales associates at each store log on to the server and search for a product at any location. If a customer at one location wants a specific mountain bike not in stock at that store, the sales associate can peruse the computer to find out which locations have the mountain bike in stock. Because Bikes USA's intranet is still evolving, the system is not yet in real time. So all products sold on Tuesday aren't updated until Tuesday evening, which means that sales associates currently receive inventory updates daily rather than up-to-the minute. However, within a year, the company has plans for a WAN with real-time inventory available.

Other upgrades planned include real-time e-mail and voice transmission over a WAN to cut down on long-distance telephone costs. The bike retailer also is looking into centralizing its in-store music and is considering piping in consumer-oriented cycling information, such as upcoming events or new store openings.

To accomplish its current networking capabilities, each store has a few nodes on a LAN, and corporate headquarters has an ethernet (10baseT network) that performs the nightly polling of inventory, sales tabulations, and transfers from all the retail locations. It uses an asynchronous modem over dial-up lines at 14.4 bps.

Bikes USA currently utilizes two server platforms, working in tandem, to service and poll information and inventory data from its retail stores. At headquarters it runs Novell 3.12 and an IBM AS/400, with applications running on both platforms. Bikes USA added the AS/400 platform to support its JDA MMS (Merchandise Management System) software, which Novell couldn't support.

Level two intranet usage encourages the selective exchange and review of works in progress. One engineering and construction firm uses a sector of its intranet to link the managers of major construction projects around the world. Because many of these projects-hydroelectric plants, for example-share a common design and similar resource requirements, the ability to exchange progress reports, technical specifications, graphics, and other information lets each manager learn from the experience of others. In addition, this intranet sector provides for automated routine reporting to headquarters, relieving country managers of what had been significant logistical headaches.

This usage has evolved over the past year to include collegial exchange of anecdotal information, as well as more formal reporting. As a result, project managers report a stronger sense of connection with one another and with the firm as a whole. More tangibly, headquarters staff report more timely, thorough documentation-with fewer complaints from the field-and the firm is considering scaling back its schedule of country manager meetings from quarterly to semi-annually.

A major social services organization with chapters throughout the U.S. and Latin America uses its intranet at level two to share draft policy statements and strategic plans with chapter presidents in targeted locations. For this organization, a primary challenge is to preserve and promote an overall identity and strategy while accommodating wide variations in local law, politics, and customs. In addition, the home office has responsibility for "feeding the field"-that is, supporting local efforts with collateral resources, such as printed materials and tech-nical consulting.

This agency's intranet (which was funded by a combination of foundation grants and corporate in-kind contributions) has proven invaluable in improving the turnaround time required to achieve agreement on a broad-and urgent-initiative affecting all 115 chapters. Presidents of these chapters used the site to review an outline of the policy statement and to fill in local details via an e-mail dialog box. Once all comments had been received, the agency posted a revised statement for final approval by executive directors representing each country. Total time from start to finish: three weeks-as opposed to six months, which had been the norm for an "expedited" initiative.

On a more routine level, this agency uses its intranet to distribute regular news bulletins and analyses and to provide local chapters with uniform collateral materials, such as slide shows and pamphlets. The flexibility of the intranet allows local chapters to translate and otherwise adapt these materials to reflect local needs-quickly and at low cost.

Looking toward the future, this organization envisions expanding its intranet to include local sectors that link various volunteer committees, and others that link the home office directly to key foundations and government funding sources.

As these examples suggest, and as discussed in detail in Chapter 14, intranets often incorpor-ate numerous levels of access and security. For example, one company restricts access to sales estimates or budget projections, making them available only to a small group of regional managers. Once this data becomes historical, the company grants broader access, making it available to its entire sales force.

Similarly, authority to modify data also can be restricted, as shown in Figure 2.6. As discussed in Chapters 14 and 15, intranet design commonly distinguishes among users who may view information, those who may post information, and those who are authorized to make changes.

Figure 2.6: This graph, which tracks a company's earnings, is an example of a restricted-access file.

If the intranet has been properly designed, changing and adding access levels and creating new user groups doesn't need to be complicated or time-consuming. In fact, many intranets contain features that let users themselves create private conferences within the site to address specific user needs. The challenge with features such as these is to maintain orderly usage while giving users maximum flexibility. As detailed in Chapter 18, this can be a delicate balance, and there is no single "right" way to achieve it. Rather, "appropriate" usage should be determined by the sponsoring organization, and the site's specifications developed to encourage it.

MCKEON & JEFFRIES

When considering intranet options, McKeon & Jeffries decided on a number of applications and uses they felt were important to their intranet's success. The problem M&J wanted to solve, at least in the short term, was to provide consistent information among their three offices in such areas as human resources information, technical assistance, news, research, and contact networking. In the future, M&J hopes to provide more, but given budget and time constraints, they felt this was a good starting point. To that end, their plan for the intranet was to create the following:

An employee handbook-a hypertext digital document that would let employees find information on benefits packages, corporate policies, and new employee information. M&J also wanted the handbook to provide employment opportunities and other employer-related information.
Technical manuals. M&J has created several custom macros and applications for use in their office. Instead of creating a new paper manual every time a macro was updated or changed or a new application was created, M&J hoped to provide an electronic document allowing immediate, efficient, and inexpensive updates for a technical resource for all employees. Such manuals include macros for Excel, Microsoft Word, and ACT!. In this technical manual, M&J also hoped to include tips for troubleshooting hardware and software problems that employees might experience. For instance, one known problem was running a Microsoft Word macro on an Excel spreadsheet. Through weeks of troubleshooting, M&J found a solution that involved a few simple keystrokes, and the company changed the Word macro to eliminate the problem. In the meantime, M&J wanted the ability to communicate the new solution to employees; and, when the new macro was available, M&J hoped to give employees a quick and easy place to find and download it. Another technical reference was to be a sheet explaining to employees how to connect to the intranet from home or on the road.
Newsletters. For some time, M&J published a monthly newsletter with basic news about the company and its employees. The cost of creating and distributing this newsletter had recently become relatively high because of the large amount of information involved. Besides being costly, it was time-consuming and proved to be an inefficient way to disperse information. By the time the facts were culled and combined from all three offices, the newsletter was printed and distributed to each location, and people actually read the newsletter, it was out of date. M&J hoped to alleviate this problem by publishing the newsletter online.
Contact lists. The three offices in the same general region of the country tended to use similar vendors and contractors to perform various functions. There was also a significant overlap in networking contacts among the three offices. One of the solutions M&J wanted to provide with the intranet was a way to organize these contacts and keep them updated in a central location, but available for anyone to access. M&J hoped to create and keep current a contact list on the intranet.
Message boards. With three offices and 75 accountants, the amount of phone tag, faxing, and missed communications had caused a great deal of inefficiency and lost productivity. Instead of being able to walk down the hall and ask a question, associates now had to try to track down the experts in any given field to get answers to even basic questions. M&J hoped to provide a solution to that problem by providing threaded message boards on the intranet site so that conversations could be maintained regardless of time and location.
File server. For some time, M&J had been providing a central storage area for individual files and documents on the network. M&J hoped to provide greater access to this file server by making it available on the intranet.
Research. M&J hoped to also be able to provide greater access to research materials, be they files or documents, by making them available on the intranet.

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