Many organizations are considering implementing their first portal. They typically have one of two goals:
- To make their employees more efficient
- To improve customer satisfaction
In this article, we will outline the benefits through cost savings and revenue enhancement that companies can expect from implementing a portal. We will also outline the types of costs that companies will encounter when implementing a portal.
Portal Benefits
Many organizations look to portals to improve their operational efficiency. A hardware manufacturer places key product and customer support information on the portal making it easier for their sales, marketing and support groups to work with each other and with their customers. A consulting firm places documents on their project portals to make it easier for their consultants to find and edit key documents.
The benefits that accrue to these organizations include:
- Increased employee productivity and reduced headcount
- Cost savings through reduced paper, postage and travel costs
Other organizations look to portals to improve their relationship with their customers. A construction engineering firm builds a portal for their key customers. The portal gives the customer a view into the status of each construction project. Both the firm and the customer can add information to the portal. The firm views the portal as a value-added service. They hope to close more business with both new and existing customers.
The benefits that accrue to these organizations include:
- Increased revenue by selling more business to existing customers and by attracting new customers
- Reduced customer support costs by making it easier for customers to get information
Portal Costs
The costs of implementing a portal are quite similar to the costs associated with other IT implementation efforts. You can place them in the traditional buckets:
- Hardware—typically the server(s) needed to host the portal software
- Software—licenses for portal server software and, possibly, desktop access
- Consulting—working with a company that has experience implementing portals and using the software that you have chosen can save both time and overall implementation costs
- Personnel—employees of your organization must be involved in the development process to make sure that they can maintain and enhance the portal
- Training—since using the portal is often straightforward, the bulk of training costs are for the employee(s) who administer the portal
These initial costs are supplemented by ongoing costs for software maintenance and for portal administration and enhancements.
Nucleus research conducted a study of larger companies that implemented SAP, IBM and Plumtree portals. They found an average cost per user over the first three years ranged between $1,000 and $2,800. Given that these implementations started several years ago, costs for an organization that start a portal implementation today should be significantly lower.
Want to Learn More?
I hope these ideas are helpful. If you’d like to have us visit your organization, demonstration a portal implementation, and discuss the costs and benefits of a portal implementation in your organization, please call me or send me an e-mail message.
