Integrated Intranets:

Integrated Intranet Applications - An Introduction

Background / Overview

I want executives and managers to know that my Integrated Intranet approach can help them run their business. I want your IT department to know that my platform is not only standards-based, but also based on years of professional experience. As such, it will be easy to understand, easy to develop, and easy to maintain.

I have been building web-based intranet applications for a variety of businesses since 1999. The experience that I've gained during this time, combined with recent advances and standards with Microsoft's ASP.NET 2.0 Web application platform, form the basis of the following thoughts and recommendations.

Reasons for an Intranet Application

A typical scenario for me: a department manager needs a web-based tool to help run the department. For whatever reason, the primary software applications at the company do not provide the needed functions, nor is it desirable to modify them to do so. From my experience, this is a very common scenario that businesses face as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Having developed some expertise in this area, I now offer Integrated Intranet Solutions as my core product offering.

These are lightweight applications: easy to develop, easy to use, easy to maintain. They do what you need them to do and nothing more. They are built around the way you do business, not the other way around.

Every intranet deployment that I've done began life as a tool requested by a single department. In every case, the application was embraced immediately by the department because of its ease-of-use and because it helped people and managers do their jobs.

Also in every case, the applications grew to encompass tools and reports for other departments. Planning for this growth in your new intranet, recognizing that no department is an island, is a key to developing a manageable, effective web-based tool for your company. The following pages will detail how my Integrated Intranet Solutions can serve as an ideal foundation for this growth. These solutions reflect the fact that departments are inter-dependent and that they can literally be on the same page: the Integrated Intranet.

Other Considerations

Many companies have experienced the pain of a failed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system deployment. Software systems such as Siebel are designed to do everything for everybody. (Contrast that with the stated goal of an Integrated Intranet application: They do what you need them to do and nothing more.) With a Siebel deployment, businesses are often asked to change business processes to match the software; or alternatively, it is often necessary to spend large sums of money for a highly customized Siebel deployment. Companies that fall into this trap are left with software that is incompatible with new releases to the core Siebel product, therefore they can't readily get software and security upgrades. They are also left with a bloated, complex system that is difficult to develop and expensive to maintain.