Tuesday, January 23, 2007

What is SmartCorp working on now

SmartCorp. is moving their intranet from a source of published information and online forms to a system that runs business processes. SmartCorp. is currently developing an Employee Expense Reporting system. This system brings employee credit card statements off a mainframe into a SQL server database that resides on the intranet web server. Each employee visits this site and fills out online forms that associate each transaction with an expense. Supervisors visit the site and approve or disapprove these expense reports. Controllers then visit the site to approve payment. Once this payment is approved, the system issues a debit or credit to the employee account. This system will end the paper trail of expense reporting and give SmartCorp. a competitive advantage in the area of electronic commerce. Many times a company uses the knowledge gained in developing its intranet and delivers it to its customers as a product. SmartCorp. is working to expand its intranet to other departments and is setting up guidelines where each department will be responsible for publishing its own content.

Can this case be applied to other firms? The answer is yes. Companies as small as 15 employees are benefiting from the implementation of an intranet. If a company is struggling to distribute time valuable information to its employees then it can benefit from an intranet. If a company has many hardware and software platforms that restrict information flow then it can benefit from the universal interface of the Web browser. Any company that has remote employees that need information in a quick and inexpensive fashion can benefit from an intranet. Southern companies should not feel that only large California high-tech firms have gain to be reached from this technology. Competitive advantage and increased profits have no geographical preference. I would like to thank the groups at BellSouth corporate headquarters and SmartCorp. for allowing me to use their company information in presenting intranet case studies.





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