A Process-oriented Framework for Efficient Intranet Management

At present a lot of organizations are developing and deploying Intranets to improve the internal communication and to facilitate the distribution of information. Frequently the Intranet solution is not integrated in the business processes of the organization and responsibilities both for the operation of the necessary infrastructure and for the Intranet content are not clearly defined. This can cause the whole Intranet project to fail because of downtimes and inconsistent or outdated content. This paper addresses the problem of efficiently managing an Intranet once it has been set up. The main result described in the paper is a detailed framework of processes and roles that are necessary to manage Intranets in daily business. The result is intended to be used as a template for future Intranet deployment or improvement projects. This can help organizations dramatically decrease the risk of project failure. Examining the various tasks that have to be carried out when running an Intranet, it turns out that the process framework can be divided into four categories of processes. The first and second categories refer to the business side of the Intranet solution and contain the business processes, which produce and consume information. The third and fourth categories reflect the information system side. These processes are responsible for managing content and applications. The concepts and results described in this paper are derived from several successful Intranet projects among which are Credit Suisse—one of the world’s largest banks—and LGT Bank in Liechtenstein—an international private bank. Both are successfully running an Intranet based on the results described in this paper.