Customer Reviews

Corporate Portals: Revolutionizing Information Access to Increase Productivity and Drive the Bottom Line

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a one-of-a-kind in that it provides equal coverage ofo the business and technical aspects of corporate portals. Further, it gives a very succinct description of what a portal is, and how portals can provide measurable benefits to a business.

With respect to what value a portal brings the author sums it up with an illustration early in the book that shows the many different types of portals, and the sub-categories of corporate portals. As a consultant who needs to be able to explain what a portal is in the clearest possible terms I found this one graphic worth the price of the book.

Let me cut to the chase: this book is valuable and has many strengths. It also has some shortcomings. I'll address its strengths first.

The first four chapters were gold mines. They start with a business problem statement, define portal types and their fit to specific business goals, and step you through building a business case for a portal. This is excellent information that is not only well written, but shows Ms. Collins as a seasoned expert who has done this many times before. Some of the final chapters were equally as valuable - in particular chapter 13 that addresses financial metrics analysis, and chapter 15, which is an example business case that nicely augments chapter 4.

Of great value are the checklists that are sprinkled throughout the book. They reflect the author's experience and will make your life simpler if you use them during the business analysis and implementation phases of a portal project.

I liked the author's treatment of knowledge management, which is one of the main business reasons to implement a portal. Ms. Collins demonstrates a deep understanding of this subject and it is one of the key strengths of the book. If you want to go deeper into knowledge management I recommend building upon the excellent foundation that Ms. Collins provides with Knowledge Management Toolkit by Amrit Tiwana.

There are a few weaknesses as well.

Ms. Collin's approach to making direct links to reports, analysis and queries is "brute force" in my opinion and misses one of the key features all portal software provides: the ability to interface with data using SQL queries to stuff an XML defined document type (in correct terms, "Document Type Definition") template and displaying the result using XSL (extended stylesheet language) for presentation. All or the major portals come with mechanisms called "portlets", "gadgets" and other catchy names depending on the vendor, that facilitate this method. XML and XSL are each mentioned once in the book and only in passing. I strongly use readers who are developing a portal solution that will draw from data sources to read Building Corporate Portals With XML by Finkelstein, Aiken and Zachman.

Another potential shortcoming, depending on your industry and objectives, is the treatment of identity management. While identity management is an extremely important consideration, the entity-relationship approach proposed in the book will not be effective in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, the author did not offer alternative methods. For example, if you are in health care your identification requirements are going to be governed by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which means that you need to consider role-based access controls (RBAC) as a key component of your identification and access strategy. Determining to whom to grant rights to what is a lot more complex than relatively simple E-R modeling. The design of an effective and provable RBAC strategy is through set theory. Energy is another industry that requires identification and access methods that are a lot more stringent that those recommended in this book because of the requirement to keep all regulated and unregulated business functions and data separate. Another key element of RBAC-schemes is directory-enabled identification and authentication that are independent of applications and services. The modeling for directory-based controls is object based and also cannot be done using the E-R approach. If you fall into any of these categories I strongly recommend augmenting this book with All About Network Directories by Kevin, Tina and Christina Kampman.

The above shortcomings do not detract from the value of this book as long as you take them into account. I think the author broke new ground when she wrote this book by tackling some important issues. First, she defines the real business value of a portal, then steps you through building a strategy for enabling business processes using portal technology. She also leads you through building a sound business case for implementing this technology using objective factors and measures. I have recommended this book to numerous colleagues and will continue to do so. It earns a solid five stars.

Let's play stump the consultant. Here's how it's played: read this book first, then ask your consultant or consulting company to define portal. I am willing to bet that he, she or they will devolve from the smooth-talking, jargon-dropping demigods to a mumbling characters who drop into doubletalk. Why? Everyone is talking about portals, but few understand what they are, or for what purpose they can be used.

This book, Corporate Portals, will explain not only what a portal is, but how this technology can leverage corporate knowledge across all lines of business. This book does an excellent job of explaining portals as a technology and a corporate tool. It also gives you all of the information you need to develop a compelling business case to invest in a portal implementation.

The book's focus is on leveraging knowledge and creating business value. Strong points are the sections on IT analysis and how it is linked to business processes and business requirements. The section on financial metrics analysis reinforces this focus.

Specific parts of the book that I particularly liked are: identification management, how to develop and implement a portal strategy, and the example portal project plan.

I strongly recommend this book to business process owners or executives having to deal with consultants who are recommending a portal as the end-all solution to problems. This book will arm that audience with enough information to ask intelligent questions at the very least, and possibly control the conversations and negotiations. If you are a consultant, get this book so you are not blind-sided by a savvy client. Regardless of which side of the fence you are on, client or consultant, this book will provide invaluable information that may lead to significant competitive advantages and a more intelligent workplace.

A few months ago I started working for a company that develops Corporate portals. With an IT background, but no concept of a "portal", I needed a source that was easily understood, yet technically savvy. Ms. Collins' book is just what I needed. She clearly explains the concept of a user-friendly, one-stop-shopping type of interface that allows a group of users to access customized information appropriate to their e-needs!

This author clearly explains the technology behind portals, looks at the benefits of using portal technology in a corporate environment, as well as determining how to "sell" the idea of a portal as a company-wide business solution. She also goes into detail about Knowledge Sharing and design customization.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about this immportant technology.

I've read Corporate Portals twice and think it's a thorough overview of the subject of centralizing a knowledge desktop for employees. The book shows the different features and software functions that need to be included in the final Web solution to help give their business a competitive advantage -- as opposed to simply finding out what the weather is outside. Many technology books today take a single view of the organization and talk only about one part of a company -- doing supply chain, customer relationship management, sales force automation, etc. What I like about this book is that it is well rounded. It shows how us of these pieces fit together. I specifically like the last chapter that presents a complete business case for implementing a corporate portal.

The case studies are not highly detailed, but they do provide enough detail to illustrate each example, and they do stimulate the reader into thinking of new ways that can be used to exploit the information that is currently available in their information systems.

I think it's a must-read for business executives who are trying to get a handle on what is possible with today's technology and for information technology staff trying to get the business perspective on the corporate portal.

This book is just what I needed for a complete roadmap to the technological planning, implementing and deploying a corporate portal within our business. It is just what I have needed to push the importance of this concept to our division managers to gain their support and championship. For a global organization like ours, knowledge sharing is a critical success factor and a corporate portal is instrumental to that end. Thank you Ms. Collins.

This book is very badly written. It is full of gobbledegook; for example: "The corporate portal solution is deployed in several iterations or design phases in order to revaluate universal or global features as the portal application incorporates functionality in the higher levels of personalization and navigation." The book contains a great deal of needless repetition. The English is dense; you have to constantly figure out what the author is trying to say. The paragraphs jump abruptly from one theme to another. Fortunately I work for a company producing one of the major portals. Our online help gives me a succinct answer to the use of portals. If you want a pleasant read on portals, look elsewhere.

I have found this book to be extremely helpful to me in my independent consulting practice. Understanding what to think about, focus on, and pull together in order to discuss corporate portals with my clients was more than worth the price. I learned much about what to truly expect from the myriad vendor products available; this enabled me to effectively evaluate the products and architecture differences in enterprise portal software solutions. If you want to know the right questions and specific issues to concentrate on when looking for a corporate portal -- this book will be very valuable to you.

I am a web application developer in the healthcare industry. I used this book as a guide through the entire process of planning and promoting the portal concept to my company. It gave me the information I needed to sell the idea to upper management and the insight to direct the development process within the IT department. Thank you Ms. Collins for sharing your knowledge on this important topic.

I wanted to know more about Corporate Portals so I bought this book. I am not dissapointed.

Heidi Collins has written, a well constructed, informative and comprehensive introduction to Corporate Portals that is worth much more than it's cover price to anyone who is thinking of implementing a corporate portal. Heidi Collins abviously knows her subjects, and also how to transfer what she knows, in an easy style, to the reader.

Only one word of caution, don't be put off by the marketing blurbs on the book cover -- which in general and frequently seems to be an exaggerated marketing ploy used to sell content-free trash -- this is very much a content-rich book, with practical advice and sensible guidance for business oriented technologists and technology oriented business people. Every corporate CIO should have one.

Want to really know about Corporate Portals? Then this is the book for you.

Regards,

martyn_jones@iniciativas.com

Thank you, Heidi!! I feel like I have a much better understanding of what to ask when looking at portal solutions. If you are focused on search and taxonomy features as a first step into portals,the questions Heidi provides will enable you to drill into what each vendor's search and taxonomy offerings are and how they implement them. There are a lot of differences and you will not been able to make the right choices early in the process without Corporate Portals. If you need a portal, this is a great place to learn and get started.