Enterprise portals: addressing the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems

Enterprise portals are being viewed as the next generation application platform of choice, offering benefits over both client/server and thin client arrangements. By providing a mediating layer between the information applications and resources of the organisation and the individuals using them, enterprise portals appear to provide a unique context to allow both the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems to be addressed. This study seeks to examine these often competing perspectives of information systems by using an exploratory empirical survey to investigate the actual deployment of enterprise portals within a range of different organisations. It is found that both the individual and organisational benefits that enterprise portals can offer appear to have been recognised, and coherent sets of services addressing each of these perspectives are being developed. Consistent with diffusion and acceptance of technology models, organisations appear to be commencing their portal developments with services that will ensure utilisation by individuals, and are subsequently seeking to realise organisational level benefits

Benchmarking performance management systems

The Balanced Scorecard and associated performance management approaches, has become a widely practiced and popular management reporting method in recent times. Moreover, enabling technology, which assists in the delivery and personalisation of corporate performance information, is having a deeper and more rapid impact than ever before. This paper presents a brief comparative benchmarking study of leading enterprise performance management systems. Also, the author discusses the merits of bespoke internet technology development and out-of-the-box portal functionalities. An analysis of key business drivers and implementation risks of such approaches is highlighted via a case study example, and concludes the paper

Knowledge management : why do we need it for corporates

This article gives a brief introduction about Knowledge Management (KM), its need, definition, components, KM assets, challenges and processes of KM initiative at any organisation. It also provides a narration on how the KM initiative has been adopted at ICICI OneSource, to support the achievement of its Business Process Outsourcing objectives. Both knowledge sharing as well as reuse need to be encouraged and recognized at the individual employee level as well as the company level. This is best done by measuring and rewarding knowledgeperformance. Sustained strategic commitment and a corporate culture that is conducive to knowledge-performance are vital for success in Knowledge Management. The paper concludes with suggestions for the implication for policy and future practices

Fine-tuning Central Banks Web Communications: Usability Tests & Content Management

Business processes especially in the Central Banks are more fully integrated and streamlined than ever before. Also, realistic system landscapes often consist of many systems. Disconnected silos of unstructured information continue to pile up for each organizational function and different interfaces are often implemented using the technology that is considered to be ideal for the respective interface. There appears to be lack of Enterprise Content Management strategy thus leading to significant business challenges such as untrustworthy business information due to inaccurate, outdated, conflicting information, longer financial cycles and generally inefficient processes, system performance degradations and poor data organization, inconsistent, confusing user interface as well as frequent context switching. There is therefore the need for an effective enterprise content management strategy. Web content management systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentations. Usability testing of web sites is an essential element of quality assurance and a true test of how people actually use Central Banks’ web site. It is a test of whether outsiders can successfully use the Banks’ Web site. Although formal usability tests are expensive, time-consuming and often prohibitive, periodic user testing is an important element in developing and maintaining a reader-friendly Website. Usability should emphasise clarity of communication, accessibility, consistency, navigation design, maintenance and good visual presentation. A solution to corporate intranet/internet chaos are Enterprise Portals. An enterprise portal is the gateway to the end user. It offers a central point of access to information, applications and services in an enterprise. It is a one-stop shopping for knowledge workers; the portal is both a gateway to and a destination on the enterprise network that provides transparent, tailored access to distributed digital resource. An Enterprise Portal provides numerous benefits to users, allowing them to interact with relevant information and application, both internal and external to the company, collaborate with others both inside and outside the Central Banks through self-service publishing customise-and-tailor a Web page with information that is easily found. This paper discusses the issue of Usability Tests and Web Content Management that enhance user productivity. Drawing from some award winning intranets some areas for best practices for the financial services such as the African Central Banks are high-lightened vis-à-vis the infrastructural problems facing the African Continen

Using ERP as a basis for Enterprise application integration

Architecting and implementing e-Business supply chain solutions across and within the modern day enterprise, is now becoming a necessity in order to maintain competitive and be adaptable to market needs. As such, the integration of information and processes is a vital step, using technologies such as using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and enterprise portal platforms. The effective sharing of resource planning and other enterprise related data across and within the enterprise is typically seen as a facet of a business to business (B2B) platform. However, such infrastructures typically involve a tight integration across intra and inter-organisational systems. This paper examines an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) initiative taken by a global manufacturer of industrial automation products, which attempted to utilise ERP as an integration tool across its internal B2B infrastructure, to achieve such an aim. This paper discusses those integration considerations and complexities, experienced by the case company upon embarking on an EAI integration programme through the adoption of a core ERP as a catalyst for organizational change. In doing so the authors present an analysis of the inherent risks and limitations of this approach in terms of previously published literature in the field, relating to technology-driven organizational change and EAI impact and adoption frameworks

SafeWeb: A Middleware for Securing Ruby-Based Web Applications

Web applications in many domains such as healthcare and finance must process sensitive data, while complying with legal policies regarding the release of different classes of data to different parties. Currently, software bugs may lead to irreversible disclosure of confidential data in multi-tier web applications. An open challenge is how developers can guarantee these web applications only ever release sensitive data to authorised users without costly, recurring security audits. Our solution is to provide a trusted middleware that acts as a “safety net” to event-based enterprise web applications by preventing harmful data disclosure before it happens. We describe the design and implementation of SafeWeb, a Ruby-based middleware that associates data with security labels and transparently tracks their propagation at different granularities across a multi-tier web architecture with storage and complex event processing. For efficiency, maintainability and ease-of-use, SafeWeb exploits the dynamic features of the Ruby programming language to achieve label propagation and data flow enforcement. We evaluate SafeWeb by reporting our experience of implementing a web-based cancer treatment application and deploying it as part of the UK National Health Service (NHS)