Intranets Grow Up, Get Personal

Scott Patterson, Callahan & Associates
April 4, 2005

Corporate portals are a tough concept to grasp but easy, and more affordable, to deploy every passing day. Essentially, corporate portals are browser-based software programs that provide a framework for a credit union to build an intranet that is customizable by department and by individual.

Let me illustrate the idea with an analogy. If you have ever visited Yahoo!, you’ll see a similar concept is at work. The main page of Yahoo shows “boxes” of content—In the News, Marketplace, Weather, Search, Services and more. If they know who you are (i.e., you are “logged in”), some of the content is targeted—like the weather box. This is the equivalent of the traditional intranet.

My Yahoo! is the equivalent of the new corporate portals. With My Yahoo! you can decide what “boxes” you want on the page and also customize the content of each. The weather box shows forecasts for as many cities you want. News can be customized by type: domestic, world, or politics to name a few. Pick specific stocks to track or your favorite comics to read. My Yahoo! not only lets you choose all this content, it allows you to display the information in whatever order you want and even goes so far as letting you choose a color scheme for the page (my current favorite is the Wild Zebra design).

Now imagine the equivalent to My Yahoo! on your credit union intranet. In addition to information that is relevant to all employees (HR policies, calendars, etc.), the marketing team sees a scorecard of new members, members per household, and product penetration per member. The lending department sees a dashboard that includes average loan balance per member, total loans granted to date, and delinquency rates. The tellers and MSRs see the latest specials and specific messages to convey to members.

Portal pages can be personalized to:

· Provide access to personal appointment calendars and e-mail through Microsoft Exchange (Outlook) · Allow for on-demand collaboration with skills-based corporate instant messaging · Deliver custom content through RSS feeds from industry information providers · Manage user-assigned workflow from system applications

The only major limitation to what is available is typically based on the creativity from your staff to define what they want to see.

Corporate portal technology is not new to business, but only relatively recently has the competition among providers allowed pricing to be well within the reach credit unions. There are providers specifically serving financial institutions and even Microsoft has a range of portal-like offerings.

A Case History

State Employees Credit Union in Lansing, Michigan recently upgraded its intranet to be an interactive corporate portal. When it initially made the decision, front-line staff were involved in the development process to engender excitement and buy-in for the new portal.

State Employees created work groups with responsibility for areas of the new intranet. Once employees realized the potential of the new application, point people from each department began populating the corporate portal with content. Currently, the portal includes pages such as product branding strategies, product timetables, and human resource documents. Each work group has control over its own content, which facilitates conversations and keeps interest high while continuously updating information.

Scott Patterson is vice president of e-commerce for Callahan & Associates, Inc. (800-446-7453). This article first appeared on www.creditunions.com and is reprinted with permission. For more information, visit www.creditunions.com.