ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
LECTURE 10
CORPORATE INTRANET, EXTRANET, AND PORTAL
KM Tools and Knowledge Portals
Portals
Portals are Web- based applications which provide a single point of access to online
information. These can be regarded as virtual workplaces which
·
Promotes knowledge sharing among end-users (e.g., customers, employees etc).
·
Provides access to data (structured) stored in databases, data warehouses etc.
·
Helps to organize unstructured data.
Evolution
·
Initially portals were merely search engines.
·
In the next phase they were transformed to navigation sites.
·
In order to facilitate access to large amount of information, portals have evolved to
include advanced search capabilities and taxonomies.
·
They are also called Information portals because they deal with information.
·
Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities obtained by using
and adding value to the information lying dormant in scattered information systems.
·
Portals can integrate applications by the way of combining, analyzing, and standardizing
relevant information.
·
Knowledge portals provides information about all business activities and they are
capable of supplying metadata to support decision making.
·
In case of knowledge portal, we do not focus on the content of the information, but we
focus on how it will be used by the knowledge workers.
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·
·
Knowledge portals have two kinds of interface:
o
Knowledge consumer interface
o
Knowledge producer interface
Enterprise Knowledge Portals (EKP) can distinguish knowledge from information and
can produce knowledge from raw data and information.
Business Challenge
·
In case of most of the businesses, usually there exists an inherent pressure to optimize
the performance of operational processes in order to reduce cost and enhance quality.
·
Customer-oriented systems allow organizations to understand the customer behaviour
pattern(s) and helps them to offer the right product at the right time.
·
Often, organizations need to commercialize their products at the lowest possible price.
Portals and Business Transformation
·
Usually problems arise from the following two fundamental aspects underlying the
present computing technology:
o The explosion in the quantity of business information already captured in
electronic documents leads many organizations to lose their grip on the
information as they upgrade their processes and transform to new systems.
o The fast speed with which the quantity (and kinds) of information content is
growing, indicates that what is needed to meet the challenges is a strict internal
discipline which can help to expose and integrate the sources of enterprise
knowledge.
·
Types of pressures faced by most organizations:
o
Shorter time to market
o
More demanding investors/customers
o
Knowledge worker turnover
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Market Potential
·
Knowledge portals are emerging as key tools for supporting the knowledge workplace.
·
The infrastructure components of the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) market:
o
Business intelligence
o
Content management
o
Data management
o
Data warehouses/data marts
Knowledge Portal Technologies Functionality
·
Gathering
·
Categorization
·
Collaboration
·
Distribution
·
Personalization
·
Publishing
·
Searching/Navigation
Collaboration
·
The aim for using the collaboration tools is to create a collaborative KM system
which supports sharing and reusing information.
·
In the context of KM, collaboration implies the ability for more than one people to
work together in a coordinated fashion over time (and space) using electronic devices.
·
Types of collaboration:
o
Asynchronous collaboration: Human-to-human interactions via computer
systems having no time/space constraints.
o
Synchronous collaboration: Human-to-human interactions (via computer
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systems) that occurs instantly.
·
Push Technology:
Places information in a place where is it easily visible.
·
Pull Technology:
Requires to take specific actions in order to retrieve information.
Content Management
·
Requires directory/indexing capabilities to automatically mange the ever growing
warehouses of enterprise data.
·
Addresses the problem of searching for knowledge in all information sources of the
enterprise. This knowledge can include structured as well as unstructured internal
information objects like office documents, collaborative data, MIS, experts, and also
external information.
·
Metadata is required to define the types of information.
·
Content management component needs to publish information in the knowledge-base.
·
Content management can handle the way the documents are analyzed, categorized, and
stored.
·
Categorizing: As the volume of documents (under management) grows, it becomes
rather important to organize similar documents into smaller groups and to name the
groups.
·
Since document collections are not static, hence portals must provide some form of
taxonomy maintenance. As new documents are added, they must be added to the
taxonomy at proper places (using a classification technology). As the clusters grow and
as the conceptual content of the new documents change over time, it can become
necessary to subdivide clusters or to move documents from one clustered to another.
Intelligent Agents
·
Agents are software which are able to execute a wide range of functional tasks
(e.g, comparing, learning, searching etc).
·
Intelligent agents are tools that can be applied in the context of EKP's.
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·
They are still in their infancy; most applications are yet experimental and have not
reached the actual commercial stage.
·
As the relationships between the organizations and their customers become more
complex, the organization needs more information regarding what these
relationships mean and the way to exploit them. Intelligent agent technology can
help to address these needs.
·
Customers usually set certain priorities while purchasing products (or using
services). Intelligent agents can master the individual customers' demand priorities
by learning from experience with them, and most of all they can qualitatively and
quantitatively analyze these priorities.
·
Some of the customer services that can be benefited by intelligent agents:
o
Customer assistance (customized) with online services.
o
Customer profiling and integrating profiles of customers into a group of
marketing activities.
o
Forecasting customer requirements.
o
Executing transactions (financial) on the behalf of customers.
o
Negotiating prices/payment schedules.
TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1. Why is there a need for portals? How are portals similar to the concept of data
warehouses and data marts?
Almost all organizations are facing challenges that impose the need for integrated
and exposed knowledge. These pressures are as follows:
·
Shorter time to market. New products and services have to be conceived, developed, and
delivered in months, or even weeks.
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·
Knowledge worker turnover. When a pivotal person leaves, the pain is widely and
quickly felt. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to acquire and retain employees, and a
company’s strongest asset is its people,” says Chris Moore, chief technology officer at
Training Server, Inc. “Organizations that do not tap into their mind share and take
advantage of the knowledge within will quickly fall behind.”
·
More demanding customers and investors. For virtually every organization, the squeeze
is on customers wanting to pay less while investors want more value from their
portfolios. This means that all the resources to which an organization can lay claim,
including its intellectual resources, must be managed for the best result.
Data warehouses and data marts give access to data collected from different
databases. Portals provide the interface to reach, and manipulate data in data
warehouses in addition to other collaboration services.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having your portal on the Internet
instead of an intranet?
An enterprise portal is designed to provide the same interface for employees,
managers, customers, and suppliers. It allows anybody involved in the enterprise
to have access to the portal from anywhere from the world. It is not restricted to
local use. Therefore, it is better to deploy portals over the Internet rather than the
Intranet.
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3. List the differences between knowledge and information portals. Discuss the benefits
of each.
Enterprise Information Portals
• Use
both
“push”
technologies
and
to
Enterprise Knowledge Portals
“pull” • Are goal-directed toward
transmit
knowledge production,
information to users through a
knowledge acquisition,
standardized Web-based interface
knowledge transmission, and
knowledge management
• Integrate disparate applications
including content management,
• Are focused on enterprise business
business intelligence, data
processes such as sales,
warehouse/data mart, data
marketing, and risk management
management, and other data external
to these applications into a single
• Provide, produce, and manage
system that can “share, manage, and
information about the validity
maintain information from one
of the information they supplies
central user interface”
• Include all EIPs functionalities
• Have the ability to access both
external and internal sources of
data and information; and the
ability to support a bi-directional
exchange of
information with these sources
The main benefits of each:
Knowledge portals
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·
Provide information on various topics, and can be customized to meet a user’s
individual needs.
·
Portals make it easy to access knowledge because of their universal interface—a Web
browser.
Online portal systems let IT organizations access a variety of back-end systems (such as
process management soft-ware and methodology databases).
·
•
Knowledge portals provide two kinds of interfaces:
The knowledge producer interface. It facilitates the knowledge worker’s job of
gathering and analyzing information, collaborating with peers or colleagues, and
finally generating new knowledge.
•
The knowledge consumer interface. It facilitates the dissemination of knowledge
across the enterprise. A key feature of knowledge portals is a sophisticated
personalization facility that takes into account the consumer profile.
Information Portals
·
Benefits for companies include Lowered costs, increased sales, and better deployment
of resources.
·
Portals integrate applications by combining, standardizing, analyzing, and distributing
relevant information and knowledge to end users, whether they are customers,
employees, or partners.
4. Discuss the strategic and technological fit required for an organization to implement
a portal.
Companies must develop strategies and processes designed to best utilize
intellectual resources at both the strategic and operational levels. Companies already
began using groupware (such as e-mail, discussion forums, and document libraries)
for coordinating activities. Now, deploying next- generation information, application
platforms (such as enterprise portals), and real-time tools (such as instant messaging,
Web conferencing, and streaming audio/video) are required.
5. Discuss the differences between static and dynamic portals. When would you use each?
A Static portal is a unified interface providing access to enterprise applications. A
dynamic portal has collaboration and interactivity features.
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·
Discuss how you can use content management to sort knowledge from external and
internal sources. Illustrate with examples.
Content management in the EKP context requires directory and indexing capabilities
to automatically manage the ever-growing store of structured and unstructured data
residing in data warehouses, Web sites, ERP systems, legacy applications, and so
forth. Using metadata to define types of information, good content management can
serve as the backbone for a system of corporate decision- making where business
intelligence tools mine data and report findings back to key players in the enterprise.
Content management may also involve going outside the enterprise, employing
crawlers that find pertinent data via the Internet, incorporating it into existing
systems, indexing it, and delivering it to appropriate analysts, knowledge workers,
or decision makers.
7. Discuss the issues that can arise when implementing a portal. Focus on technology,
management, corporate strategy, and end users.
For globally distributed organizations (that is, most international development
organizations) that rely on the Internet as a medium for the sharing of knowledge,
the issue of bandwidth is fundamental. At this point in the evolution of the Internet,
bandwidth is a chief constraining factor for many applications.
8. Give examples and uses of portals for B2B, B2C, B2G, C2C, and C2G.
·
Amazon.com is an example of B2C portals
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Plasticexchanche.com, ChemConnect.com, Paperloop.com are examples of B2B portals
for the plastics chemical and paper industries
·
www.e-government.govt.nz/ is a C2G portal allowing people to find and use New
Zealand government information and services
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·
www.firstgov.gov is the official U.S. gateway to all government information. First Gov
is a comprehensive portal connecting citizens, businesses, and agencies to the
government.
9. List a number of possible ways a portal can be made accessible, given current
technological trends. Focus on five of these technologies and discuss their strengths
and weaknesses.
·
Internet
·
Intranet
·
Extranet
·
Mobility portals
·
Learned Lectures
11.
An audit firm needs to develop a system that allows auditors and public
accountants to search accounting standards, share knowledge, communicate, and
share Word and Excel files between the head office and clients’ sites. As a
consultant, you have been asked to recommend such a system. What would you
suggest?
The suggested system is an enterprise knowledge portal (EKP) with the following
functionalities:
·
Gathering: This function captures all accounting standard in a common repository.
·
Categorization: This function profiles information and organizes it in an understandable
and presentable way such as Word and Excel files. This categorization is supported at
all levels (employees, managers, and clients)
·
Distribution: This facility supports the distribution of structured and unstructured
information in the form of electronic documents.
·
Collaboration: This function is used to share the knowledge between the head office
and client’s sites through asynchronous collaboration such as e-mails, discussion forum,
etc.
·
Search/Navigate: Which will help clients and employees to reach required information?
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12.
A hardware retailer wishes to offer real-time support to customers via the Internet.
Suggest how a knowledge portal, equipped with chat and CRM, can be used to
accomplish this. What additional support can the hardware retailer offer? What
information can he give to the manufacturer?
By using a knowledge portal equipped with a synchronous collaboration tools, the retailer
can accomplish the following customer support, he will improve costumer retention and
satisfaction by solving their problems online and immediately.
He will be able to reduce costs through decreasing phone calls and site visiting. Also, he
will be able to penetrate new market segments by attracting new customers who will find
the service an attractive and easy to adapt to one.
The retailer can add an FAQ section that enlists the most common defects that encounter
hardware, with the ability of updating it regularly using input from customers. This will
add value to the costumer as she can find what she is looking for without the need to type
a massage also it will be beneficial for the manufacturer who will use the costumers’
feedback to improve quality of his products.
13.
Discuss how synergy between different strategic business units can be harnessed and
utilized by knowledge portals.
By using a knowledge portal, different business units can interact and collaborate to
reach the best results. It enables the employees to use a web-based workplace for drag
and drop file sharing, multithreaded discussions, real time messaging, and polling. Also,
productivity can be increased because users of the portals from different business units
know what is happening across the enterprise and can stay on top of their costumers,
products and markets, driving sales. Additionally, employees can communicate with one
another and discuss various issues without consuming much resources and time.
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