Nielson's most current Alertbox is out, Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First
Rather than offering a unified intranet portal, one big company's intranet had inconsistent design and used different systems to manage different areas. As employees moved around the intranet, the navigation options and structural appearance changed. Parts of the intranet looked outdated compared to newer sections, which made users doubt the accuracy of the older pages' information. Again, this is a credibility problem -- trust is not just an e-commerce issue.
Comment:
If Nielson is referring to Big Company as a Multinational, one principal scenario is at play.
1. The intranet was managed by headquarters. As the firm grew and moved into different countries, additional business units created their own Intranet systems purely for information survival. Headquarters may have gotten bogged down with Webmaster requests or an inventive employee simply created the information that they needed. This probably started with a phone list.
In an attempt for integration, all of these systems were hooked together, and hence the reason why some areas were outdated and had different navigation schemes.
Solution: A redesign that allows for scale, and template-based content management for uniformity. Pages are easily created by business units or departments, and the design (including the UI) runs throughout the entire system.
This all looks good on paper, but what if the firm makes it a practice of acquiring new businesses like Cisco did in the 1990's? Content management across multiple businesses clearly becomes an issue. While I don't think it is necessary for new businesses to lose their autonomy for purposes of information management, some degree of uniformity is important.
The issue is where does the uniformity exist? Some firms may want their newly acquired businesses to remain as independent units for strategic reasons. For example, McDonalds owns Chipotle but you won't find a Golden Arches overlooking that restaurant.
So while they are distinct on the outside, what about the inside? How does strategic distinction effect the information needs of, and more importantly, the knowledge flows of Multinationals?
