IBM's Own Intranet: Saving Big Blue Millions

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Five years ago, Jeanette Barlow, Manager for IBM's e-Workplaces business unit, almost never accessed the company's intranet, and neither did many of her colleagues. Today, after consolidating over 8,000 intranet sites, 680 "major" sites, 11 million web pages and 5,600 domain names, IBM Dynamic Workplaces - W3 to employees - is rated the number one source of information within the company. "W3 has surpassed management, coworkers, external media, and the internet in terms of usefulness," says Barlow, "Before I go into a meeting, I check W3 to make sure I'm in-the-know. It's had a profound impact on our culture. In fact, it's become our culture."

"Before we implemented the Dynamic Workplace," she continues, "there were far too many sources of information to search through. And to know where to start looking, an employee had to know the organizational structure of the company in advance. Key to our success in developing the Dynamic Workplace was the goal of rendering the complexity of the organization irrelevant."

This was achieved through streamlining technology, and what IBM call's "killer apps." The Dynamic Workplace solution uses software from across the IBM Software portfolio, including Lotus' collaborative solutions, into the following applications: the Blue Pages, Instant Messaging, e-Meetings, Persona page, My News, Scorecard, e-HR and e-Learning. The following is a summary of these applications and their function;

• Blue Pages
  The Blue Pages, an employee lookup directory is the most commonly used intranet application at IBM. Originally designed to replace the company's phone directory, the tool has become an authoritative source on how to find the right people to get the job done. Future plans call for IBM to take the existing BluePages application and leverage new technologies, such as the Lotus Knowledge Discovery Server, to access additional relevant information. "It's very empowering," said Jeanette, "I'm a manager, and like everyone, I need people and I need information. Instead of asking everyone I know 'who is the expert on this?' I can quickly find out myself."

  The system supports end-user application directory search and authentication, and provides multiple fields as search criteria. Personnel information, such as projects, skills, business interests, and team data can be fed into the Blue Pages, enabling employees to search by many criteria. Gregg said, "IBM is currently conducting pilot tests using the Discovery Server to mine all sources of information about employees so that users can search by an even wider range of criteria in the future."
  
  

• Instant Messaging
  Utilizing Sametime, the Dynamic Workplace provides users with a summary of which colleagues are online and available to talk, meet or just answer a quick question via an instant message. Sametime also provide a toolkit capability so this 'awareness and conversation' capability can be embedded into applications. For instance, IBM's Sales Tools web application lets users see who is online WITHIN that same application -- so suddenly, users have awareness within a particular context -- all helping drive more efficient communications.
  
  
• e-Meetings
  Through instant messaging, employees can plan e-meetings. The 2nd most popular workplace tool at IBM, e-meetings have saved the company over $4 million/month by reducing travel and meeting expenses. Using the e-meetings advisor, employees can determine the best way to meet, either via conference call, webcast, using electronic whiteboards, or slides.

  "The ability to hold e-meetings has also had a positive impact on employee morale," noted Jeanette. "It's much more flexible - some people like the option of not having to travel."