Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Are Corporations in Atlanta developing intranets

Major corporations are not usually the first to embrace new technology but I offer a case study of one Atlanta corporation doing just that. he following case study will focus on the BellSouth corporate headquarters intranet, serving employees at the Campanile building in midtown Atlanta. This intranet serves roughly 700 of the 80,000 BellSouth employees. It should be noted that BellSouth has many intranets and this case study focuses on only the intranet at corporate headquarters.

BellSouth began creating this intranet about eight months ago. As with many companies they were phasing out a VAX system and were looking for a new internal network solution. The persons that control the technology at BellSouth were aware of Internet technology and that it may offer a cost-effective solution. BellSouth made sure to cost-justify every phase of intranet development. The intranet was developed with the user in mind. BellSouth emphasizes that "the employees are our customers."

The intranet is used for data retrieval and active applications. The corporate intranet is used to publish a corporate directory on all employees. Users can use the on-line "Employee Locator" to find information on any employee at corporate headquarters or any subsidiary. The employees receive real-time stock quotes over the intranet. BellSouth corporate employees can put in ticket requests for immediate technical service or schedule projects and conferences via the intranet. Intranet applications are linked into e-mail and paging services to help facilitate communication on all requests.

BellSouth faced few obstacles in implementing the intranet. Employees were very excited about the new technology. BellSouth used auditorium learning sessions along with a help desk to train users on the new system. Individual departments are responsible for publishing their own content and one administrator maintains the system. New applications are developed in a modular fashion with the concepts developed in house and determinations made to see if outside help is needed for development.





http://www.intranetroadmap.com/article1.cfm