Financial information and news provider Reuters has replaced a
legacy of about 600 internal Web sites with an employee portal
giving access to integrated back-office systems for its 19,000
employees.
Although the Myweb portal - which draws on about 50 data sources -
has a uniform "look" it is customised for business roles such as
sales, editorial or region. As well as displaying business
information it also includes workflow tools so that actions and
alerts can be related to content.
Mark Hunt, director of enterprise solutions for Reuters, said,
"What we have achieved is consistency and ease of access.
Previously staff had to look hard to find what they wanted.
"Now, because the portal is effectively one system globally, it is
searchable, employees get information in a timely fashion, they can
act on it and are more effective at work," he said.
Hunt described the previous configuration of 600 internal Web sites
as chaotic, not very searchable, susceptible to integration
problems and containing duplicated content, such as customer
details stored in several places.
The portal is a window for employees on to about 50 data sources
which are made accessible by using adapters from software provider
Tibco's Portal Builder tool.
The disparate sources of information, such as news and financial
data feeds and customer information are made available to the
portal.
Individual employees' views are tailored to their roles, with
information relevant to their positions fed automatically to them
following profile-sensitive login and authentication procedures.