Determining Portal Benefit

The Solution

If you’re not sure whether you need a portal or what it can do for you, Summa’s Business Value Assessment (BVA) for Portals can help. Based on IBM’s proven methodology, a Portal BVA is a structured process and set of tools to analyze the business value and impact of investing in, replacing or updating a portal. The modular hands-on process aligns priorities and gains consensus among key stakeholders -- the executive, business, financial and technical decision makers -- and includes consensus workshops, evaluating the ROI of your portal project, and providing a “Day in the Life” Demo showing what a portal would improve at your business using key scenarios in your environment.

• The Process

  1– Business Value Alignment. Summa’s team conducts workshops and interviews with the stakeholders, including executives, line of business managers and information technology leaders. This identifies various portal objectives and the business processes that stakeholders aim to improve – along with the structure and interdependencies of the technology systems currently used to complete this process. Unearthing discontinuity among stakeholders’ objectives, processes, or priorities is not uncommon at this stage, but completing the BVA process helps you gain consensus and determine how you can reap the greatest benefit from a portal and workplace solution.

  2 – Day-in-the-life Value Demonstration. This working model represents the possibilities of your portal and the potential impact it can have on your organization. Establishing this vision of the “end scenario” can help you demonstrate more widely across your organization what would a portal do and what would be gained.

  This demo is designed to powerfully and quickly show:

  • How your organization envisions using a portal and what the portal experience would be like for the various users.
  • Specific business processes or transactions that would be conducted through the portal, linking to any existing, mission-critical systems.
  • Collaboration and consensus points among stakeholders.
  • How out-of-the box capabilities deliver value in the context of your business.
  • How the variety of information would be made available through personalized delivery to the stakeholders: whether employees from different departments or at various organizational levels, or information presented to customers and trading partners.
• 3 – Business Value Assessment (ROI). We work with your team members to realistically identify portal costs and establish a business case with a thorough return-on-investment (ROI) tool, including consideration of net present value of the portal vs. your present scenario. Ultimately, together, the vision and the ROI drive your team to reach an answer that’s right for your organization.