The intranet litmus test occurs when any one person or department can find what they need efficiently so they can provide for clients while at the same time they transact business with other units and vendors, such as application service providers and e-business partners.

Each person who uses the intranet also must be responsible for building it. In fact, it seems to take a village-full of people to create and develop a strong enough intranet to support the changing demands of financial services clients these days.

If everyone attends to it regularly, the Internet brings about unity, functionality, and prosperity. Like the child in the village, if only some business functions participate, growth is stunted. Regardless of company size, if many neglect its continuous refreshment, it becomes dysfunctional. The disconnect between the “parents” (breaks in the value chain) eventually shows up in internal rivalries and external business losses. 

Many enterprises still think of their Intranet only as an employee bulletin board that connects enterprise data. The intranet is not a machine or a software program, or just a data repository. Rather, it is the online business blueprint for the stock-in-trade of financial services providers: their intellectual capital.

According to the American Society of Trainers and Developers, www.astd.org, 47% of companies are developing their intranets for knowledge management, and 33% are implementing groupware to support collaboration.

Whether for a trust department, a contract auditing company, a financial planner or a CPA firm, every firm’s Web presence has three aspects:

• External - the public page
• Intranet - a firm’s secure, internal knowledge-management system
• Extranet - the dedicated, secure connection for business-to-business transactions with clients and vendors

The Intranet Business Backbone
Financial service provider companies (FSPs) get paid to provide just-in-time data, resources and guidance to clients. At any moment in the life of a service project the intranet is the staging area where the tools come together:

• Mission, history, executive bios, company fact sheet, and corporate logos.
• A link to the firm’s external Web page for press releases and latest marketing initiatives.
• Client data and history. This is where proposal templates, letters of agreement, client information and current projects are posted. (Tips: Use page footers indicating last update. Brand forms with company logo, and mark templates as confidential/proprietary.)
• Applicable formulas, rates, laws, FASB bulletins, and the like.
• Company “boilerplate” such as forms, presentation templates, stationery, logos, bios, client references, and other company “boilerplate”.
• Processes, policies, and flowcharts the firm uses in specific situations.
• Access to shared data-management tools.
• Email administration and proprietary programs.

The News
Even smaller firms can post news articles to their Intranet browser front page, including:

• Virus alerts
• Quarterly reports
• Company budget announcements
• Marketing initiatives
• Human Resources announcements
• Company news
• Industry, partner company, and competitors’ news
• Client news and releases

Who Manages?
The management of a firm’s overall Web content should not be left to the Webmaster or system administrator. Theirs is a support role, though critical. It is important to centralize system administration, but to decentralize content management.

Each functional unit of the firm usually has a content point-of-contact who will ensure that current documents, forms, policies, and processes are captured on a regular basis for that group, and that news of changes is announced.

A cross-functional Web or e-Commerce team (often facilitated by Communications) reviews the alignment of Web content with the firm’s current business strategy, from marketing and project management, to HR benefits and administrative activity. The council reduces redundancies and curbs conflicting policy-making. The Web team often surfaces customer service glitches and backend breaks in processes.

How A Web Team Works
No matter the size of the FSP, the Web team usually meets on a quarterly basis. Members represent Human Resources, Communications, Information Technology, the network and email administration. Additionally there is a decision-maker from each business unit, particularly Marketing because they usually maintain the external page. The council ensures communication of the firm’s annual plan of business goals and initiatives. 

• Its major clients and current business plan and goals.
• The way their major and typical clients use their own Web sites.
• The firms’ external page.
• Their portal or business-to-business Web site partnerships.
• A regular technology and policy audit, to spot repeated problems with hosting, servers, design and development, security and maintenance.
• Review vendor software integration issues across business units for compatibility.
• The team also develops, implements, and keeps current an electronic and communications policy that covers flaming, spamming, client confidentiality and the like. (Note: In companies of 50 or more, all-employee email becomes cumbersome and can clog servers in the event of spamming or viruses.)
• All-employee email becomes cumbersome with company growth. It is best to use news, departmental sites, and project-specific bulletin boards.

The degree of excellence, quality, and detail in a firm’s intranet sets a cultural tone and confidence for external customer service. The intranet provides identity and good order amid the disarray of changing financial service providers and products.

As FSPs adjust to changes in the law, to new e-business partnerships, and to mass customization, each firm and its managers will need to take a look at the family picture in their intranet browser: Is everyone looking in the same direction? Is the entire village/family in focus?