Project report : Analysis web portals of four different companies

1. Web Portals
FORE School of Management, New Delhi
CIT & E-Commerce Project
WMG 21
Web Portals
Submitted to
Prof. Rakhi Tripathi
Submitted By (Group 3)
212010 DIVYA KAPOOR
212027 RESHMI RAVEENDRAN
212017 KUNAL NAGPAL
212038 VAGEESH KUMAR
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2. Web Portals
Web Portal
Abstract
Objective: In this project, we would be analyzing the Web portals for 5 companies (FORE School of
Management, KPMG, Yahoo, Dialogic and eBay) of different industries and compare them.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Chapter 2
KPMG (Divya Kapoor –Roll No 212010)
KPMG has an internal web portal for their employees which connect an employee with the whole
organization. This portal is only accessible through their internal network. The portal includes useful
links which helps employees to easily access databases and other functionalities. This is a B2E service.
Chapter 3
Dialogic (Vageesh Kumar –Roll No 212038)
I would be analyzing the Internal and External web portal of Dialogic
External Portal for customers (current & prospective): This is a portal that Dialogic uses for its
customers. They can login and get support for their products/ download required software/drivers. There
is also a cloud platform that they can use for testing of their applications. This is a B2B/B2C service.
Chapter 4
FORE School of Management (Reshmi Raveendran –Roll No 212027)
FORE is an educational institution (non profit). The end customers using this portal are: Students,
faculty, staff, others (visitors looking for information, business opportunities, career etc). I would be
focusing on Student as the end users. Currently the features used by the students are: mail, social media
links, Fee collection system, access to student’s e-learning platform (claroline), Link/point of Access for
new applicants (to fill the form) and existing applicants (to check GD PI/Selection status), Announcement
section etc. I will also be covering how The ERP system which is under implementation will act as a
central node integrating the students, employees & faculty and what other tools can be incorporated in
the future.
Chapter 5
eBay (Kunal Nagpal–Roll No 212017)
eBay: Online shopping site where I will analyze external portal for C2C. Customers can get best deals on
Electronics, fashionable items etc. I will be analyzing how eBay is adding value to the sellers and buyers
on their transactions.
Chapter 6
Yahoo (Kavita Kharayat –Roll No 212016)
Yahoo is the one of the biggest global online network of integrated services. It offers a variety of services:
Unlimited access to rich resources, Communication tools, forums, Shopping services, Search services,
personalized content, branded programming, Employment opportunities. I will work on its different
features and will try to give my findings on benefits of the Yahoo portal for the company (Yahoo) itself,
end users and other businesses. Yahoo provides B2B & B2C service. I will be focusing on B2C.
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3. Web Portals
Chapter 7
Conclusion: Comparison of the portals of these five companies and how the Web Portals
of each organization are structured on the basis of the relevance it holds for the end user.
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4. Web Portals
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
1.1
Background ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
1.2
Features of a Web Portal: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9
1.3
Need for Research ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10
1.4
About the Company/Institute/Organization----------------------------------------------------------------- 11
CHAPTER 2: KPMG -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12
2.1
Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12
2.2
Methodology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13
2.3
Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13
2.3.1
Impact of web portal on the end users: KPMG employees ------------------------------------------- 14
2.4
Discussion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17
2.5
Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18
CHAPTER 3: DIALOGIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19
3.1
Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19
3.2
Web Portals at Dialogic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19
3.3
Methodology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
3.4
Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
3.5
Impact on End Users----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22
Challenges --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23
3.6
Insights ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23
3.7
Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23
CHAPTER 4: FORE School of Management -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24
4.1
Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24
4.2
Methodology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24
4.3
Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25
4.4
Impact on End Users: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28
4.5
Insights ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29
4.6
Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29
Chapter 5: eBay External Web Portal--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
5.1
Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
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5. Web Portals
5.2
Methodology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
5.3
Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
5.3.1
Buyer --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
5.3.2
Seller ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 32
3.
Seller tool ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 33
5.3.3
Insight -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 34
5.3.4
Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 34
Chapter 6: Yahoo Web Portal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 35
6.1
Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
6.2
Methodology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
6.3
Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
6.4
Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32
Chapter 7: Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 33
Comparison Chart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 40
Limitations of the study:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 41
References ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 426
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6. Web Portals
List of Tables
Table 1: Comparison Chart ......................................................................................................................... 40
List of Figures
Figure 1: KPMG Employee Portal ................................................................................................................ 13
Figure 2: KPMG Web Portal - My Settings .................................................................................................. 17
Figure 3: Dialogic Exchange Network.......................................................................................................... 20
Figure 4: FORE Web Portal .......................................................................................................................... 25
Figure 5: FORE ERP System ......................................................................................................................... 28
Figure 6: EBAY Home Screen....................................................................................................................... 31
Figure 7: EBAY Seller Section ...................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 8: eBay Seller Tool ............................................................................................................................ 33
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7. Web Portals
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1
Background
The term portal was earlier used to refer to well-known Internet search and navigation sites that
provided a starting point for web consumers to explore and access information on the World
Wide Web.
The original portals were search engines. The initial value proposition was to offer a full text
index of document content and a chance to take advantage of the hyper linking capabilities built
into the web protocols. While these public Internet portals continue to flourish, the market for
portal technology is increasingly focused on the better delivery of corporate information. Portal
technology has significantly matured since the public search sites were first built, and has been
used to build a diverse range of portal types, including specialized portals, enterprise
portals, workspace portals, market space portals, knowledge portals etc.
Now, the idea of a portal is to collect information from different sources and create a single point
of access to information - a library of categorized and personalized content. It is very much the
idea of a personalized filter into the web.
The major functionality areas of a portal can be grouped into the following:
1.
Search and navigation: This functionality forms the basis for most of the successful
public web portals meaning that a successful portal should support its users in an efficient
search for contents
2.
Information integration (content management): Portal should be capable of integrating
information from different sources.
3.
Personalization: each user gets only the information which is specifically tailored to
his/her needs. Personalization should be based on user roles, as well as user preferences.
4.
Notification (push technology): It is referred to as a system in which a user receives
information automatically from a network server. Push technologies are designed to send
information and software directly to a user’s desktop without the user actively requesting
it. The user has to subscribe to active information sources only.
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5.
Task management and workflow: Portals providing task management services allow the
automation of business processes. Thus, as part of a workflow-automated business
process, a portal should be able to prompt its users when they have tasks to perform.
6.
Collaboration and groupware: Knowledge management and groupware ensure that the
required information is stored in the right place and in the right mode. By this means the
right persons are brought together with the right information.
7.
Integration of applications and business intelligence: In addition to the already mentioned
functionalities, a portal can integrate and support a specific application type.
8.
Infrastructure functionality: The infrastructure functionality is fundamental for the work
environment - the other 7 functionalities mentioned above build up on this one. The
runtime infrastructure associated with the portal will have a primary effect on
manageability, scalability, security and availability.
A web portal is most often one specially-designed Web page at a website which brings
information together from diverse sources in a uniform way. Usually, each information source
gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a portlet); often, the user can
configure which ones to display. Variants of portals include Mashup (web application
hybrid) and intranet "dashboards" for executives and managers. The extent to which content is
displayed in a "uniform way" may be more or less depending on the intended user and the
intended purpose as well as the diversity of the content.
In addition, the role of the user in an organization may determine which content can be added to
the portal or deleted from the portal configuration.
An enterprise portal is a Web-based interface for users of enterprise applications. Enterprise
portals also provide access to enterprise information such as corporate databases, applications
(including Web applications), and systems.
Web portals are sometimes classified as horizontal or vertical. A horizontal portal is used as a
platform to several companies in the same economic sector or to the same type of manufacturers
or distributors. A vertical portal (also known as a "vortal") is a specialized entry point to a
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9. Web Portals
specific market or industry niche, subject area, or interest. Some vertical portals are known as
"vertical information portals" (VIPs). VIPs provide news, editorial content, digital publications,
and e-commerce capabilities. In contrast to traditional vertical portals, VIPs also provide
dynamic multimedia applications including social networking, video posting, and blogging.
Type of Web portals:


News portals

Government web portals

Cultural portals

Stock portals

Search portals

Tender's portals

Hosted web portals

1.2
Personal portals
Domain-specific portals
Features of a Web Portal:
Integration: Ability to integrate with your current tools or the possibility of adding new tools.
You have your outlook calendar and email integrated within intranet.
Security: Enable user or group based security to secure documents and sites throughout the
intranet portal.
Customization: Software that is flexible to allow for organization. Web Parts can be used to
create custom modules which can make interaction easier with the site. Ability for users to
customize tools and resources they use most often.
Collaboration: People are now able to collaborate their work with each other. Example would
be multiple people working on one document.
Communication Channels: Allows corporations to promote corporate culture and present
information in a more interactive way than before.
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10. Web Portals
Automation: Things like workflows and templates can automate specific document creation.
Alerts can be created to help learn of changes and new additions to the intranet.
Applications: Links to applications for associates to perform duties.
User Friendly: Application must be easy to use and understand due to a wide range of technical
abilities.
Remote Access: Ability for users to access content away from the office.
Document Repository: Ability to store and retrieve document information while maintaining
regular backups to prevent data loss.
Blog: Used as a method to provide more timely information to employees, customers, and
business partners.
People Search: Search enterprise wide for employee information such as contact information,
specialty areas, group membership, personal interest, etc.
Enterprise Search: search enterprise content using enterprise search
Targeted Content: Business portal administrators can target content by business group area,
e.g., HR, Marketing, Legal, Corporate Executives, etc.
1.3
Need for Research
In today’s world every business needs web presence but the solution is not just a static website
but an efficient and integrated Web Portal is required which would help the organizations to
interact with the end users (business, customers, employees etc)
Web Portals are tools not only to attract users but to serve them better, interact with existing and
new users and process transactions. They may subscribe or unsubscribe to announcements,
newsletters, or product update notifications. They can ask questions, discuss various subjects,
make suggestions, and maintain private areas tied to orders or service history, connecting
directly with your business. Of course, with a business portal, customers may also purchase
products or services directly on-line, in a secure manner. Static websites cannot deliver such
functionality and value.
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The layout of a web portal and features offered depends on the type of industry and the intended
end users. This research tries to analyze web portals of companies from various industries and
different kind of end users.
1.4
About the Company/Institute/Organization
In this project, we would analyze Web portals for 5 companies of different industries

FORE School of Management – Education Sector (Non Profit)

KPMG- Consultancy (B2E)

Dialogic-Software Company (B2B)

eBay – Online Shopping Site (C2C)

Yahoo – external portal
The scope of this project would revolve around the impact the portal of the organization has it on
its end user. Web Portal of each organization is structured on the basis of the relevance it holds
for the end user. This project is aimed at a comparative study of the web portal for different
industries and we also will be analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each of these portals.
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12. Web Portals
CHAPTER 2: KPMG
2.1
Introduction
KPMG is one of the largest professional services companies in the world and one of the Big4
auditors along with Deloitte, Ernst and Young and PriceWaterHouse Coopers. KPMG firms
operate in 156 countries and have more than 152,000 people in all the member firms around the
world. KPMG International is a Swiss entity. It is the coordinating entity for a global network of
independent firms.
The firm’s global approach to service delivery helps provide value-added services to clients. The
firm serves leading information technology companies and has a strong presence in the financial
services sector in India while serving a number of market leaders in other leading segments.
Our internal information technology and knowledge management systems enable the delivery of
informed and timely business advice to clients.
It’s important for any organization to have a Web-based vehicle which can provide employees a
core set of features and utilities that can be accessed easily and seamlessly over the internet. Web
Portal provides a central point for software integration, they allow personalization, they either
provide their own content management system or integrate with external systems, and they
provide tolls for collaboration.
KPMG has an Enterprise Portal. The major benefit of Enterprise portal systems is that they
deliver a task- based as opposed to application-based experience to the end user. Portals have
become the most effective delivery mechanism for enterprise e-business strategy. The portal
transforms the user’s access method from desktop to a secure “Webtop,” offering intelligent,
integrated, and personalized access to enterprise services from anywhere, anytime.
Users can utilize a portal to access important corporate tools and applications, web services,
personalized information on clients, products and markets to which portals offer nearly instant,
one stop access. However, a corporate portal is more than just access to information resources. It
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also provides an opportunity to manage those resources efficiently. KPMG has an internal portal
for their employees which can be only accessed through their network.
2.2
Methodology
For this research qualitative techniques are suitable like taking on-board people’s experiences
and the meaning they individually or collectively attach to issues. Data has been collected
through secondary sources and also through accessing the KPMG web portal.
Figure 1: KPMG Employee Portal (http://portal.kma.kworld.kpmg.com)
2.3
Analysis
The enterprise portal solution focuses on bringing all enterprise components together into one
seamlessly integrated approach with a focus on bringing the enterprise community of employees,
administrators and management together. The enterprise portals have the enterprise resources
together and cross many functional areas rather than focusing one specific function of the
enterprise.
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An Enterprise portal is a framework for integrating information, people and processes across
organizational boundaries. KPMG portal provides a secured unified access point in terms of a
web based user interface, and is designed to aggregate and personalize information. The end
users of the KPMG portal are the employees of the organization.
These portal solutions have recognized the context of the individual visitor (employee) and
adaptively bring together all the resources needed to help them to find what they are looking for
and conduct transactions. It is done properly; hence this portal solution makes it easier for the
employees to navigate through the vast sea of information on the intranet of an enterprise and
personalize their view of this information.
The KPMG portal is country specific and this portal is only for India and hence only Indian
employees can access it through their internal network. The information is global as well as
country specific.
2.3.1 Impact of web portal on the end users: KPMG employees
a)
Information Sharing:

Content: Fresh and constantly updated content is uploaded. This content also creates
interaction; and hence it is more likely to lead to effective user interaction with the
enterprise. It shares information such as newsletters, what’s new at KPMG and there are
certain useful links for few applications such as cab booking, access to the individual
finance related information, IT and Admin support helpline, staff manual, contact
database which has a list of clients and their contact details. All the applications are
integrated within on GUI (Graphic User Interface).

Simplified User Interface development: It’s one of the most important features of the
KPMG portal that it’s extremely user friendly which helps employees to gather the
information easily and effectively.

Connectivity: This portal is able to access back-end mainframe applications, packaged
applications and relational databases. The existing enterprise functionalities are integrated
to include additional enterprise portal applications and components. It appears to be
seamlessly integrated; enabling the user to see all relevant information in one location.
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
Single Sign-On: This portal is specifically designed to allow users to authenticate once,
with that single authentication serving as the authentication for all applications within the
portal. The single sign-on functionality enables employees to perform a wide range of
functions across multiple applications utilizing a single authentication. For employees,
web-based HR self-service application, access to time sheets and even legacy
applications all recognize that the user has been successfully identified to the directory
server.

User-Based Personalization: In KPMG portal User-based personalization gives users
the flexibility to layout their own pages, assembling components of information about
themselves and which can be viewed by other employees. The major benefit to userbased personalization is that user’s have easier access to their personalized information.
This helps in forming cross-functional teams for specific projects as this feature gives the
higher management view of skills and expertise held by an individual employee.

Knowledge Management: In an ever-changing services providing business environment,
developing a means to disseminate cutting edge knowledge and tools to employees and
select enterprise partners quickly and effectively is a necessity. The KPMG portal
contains a means of integrating knowledge management content to equip employees with
essential knowledge on a timely basis and in the appropriate medium. The key to
knowledge management is changing the employee’s view of worth to the enterprise from
‘I’m only as valuable as the knowledge that I have’ to ‘I’m only as valuable as the
amount of information I empower other employees within the enterprise with.’

Social Networking: Though KPMG portal has an option for networking within the
organization through an application “My Site”, however there is no provision of social
networking through their internal portal. Although KMG has presence on social
networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and You Tube which is visible through their web
site.

Users, Organizations and Sites: KPMG has a separate entity KPMG Global services
(KGS) which is a joint venture between KPMG US, UK and in India which provides
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16. Web Portals
professional services to KPMG member firms globally; hence through the internal portal
information sharing between separate entities is enabled.

Search Option: It has a fast and comprehensive search function to browse the content of
news and events happening in KPMG. Users can search for relevant information through
faceted search in India portal or all sites globally.
b)
Content Management
There is no provision for individual employees to edit or change or personalize the content
displayed on the web portal. This portal is more of information oriented which helps the
employees to know the organization.
c)
Collaboration
The internal portal of KPMG doesn’t provide provision for collaboration in terms of individual
employees sharing documents/information via the portal. The portal is managed by a team called
“Knowledge Management” and this team is reposnsible for the content being displayed on the
internal web portal. KPMG offers a wide variety of services hence collaborating information in
one single portal is non-feasible.
However, there are separate portals created based on the business needs by the individual
teams/departments to serve the business needs which includes this collaboration feature.
Eg: For Risk & Compliance department, there is a separate portal which is used globally and it
allows employees to share and collaborate their work. They can share their work and experiences
using the portal around the globe.
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Figure 2: KPMG Web Portal - My Settings (http://collab.kma.kworld.kpmg.com)
2.4
Discussion
The objective of this study is to determine the impact of KPMG web portal on the employees. As
per the employees and from the secondary data sources, the web portal is of a great help to the
employees in terms of the information they gather from a single page.
KPMG portal is not cluttered and by default its the home page for the employees. Its very
benficial for the new employees to know the organization better. Also, being a service provider
most of the employees are at client site and hence it helps the new employee to extract
information through the portal.
This internal portal is not specific to any particular practice/service line and hence the
information related to the ongoing projects and documents peratining to their work experience
are not shared through this portal. However, there are specific department wise portals to share
such information among the employees.
This portal suffices the purpose of being a one stop shop for the employees in terms of servcies
required by KPMG employees irrespective of their departement. The content is owned by
“Knowledge Management” team and any user can write to them for feedback or any query.
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Challenge: The greatest challenge for the future is further development of their portals. This is
connected with their intent to increase efficiency of the existing solutions, make improvements
and add functionalities as well as ensure better customization to the needs of users and
organizations. An equally important challenge lies in ensuring greater employee involvement,
particularly in their use of portal features to support daily work, business processes & operations.
2.5
Conclusion
Corporate Web Portals are a gateway for the users to enter into the organization and gather
information from a single page. KPMG has been successfully serving their employees since last
20 years through their portal. There have been changes in the portal with time according to the
demand of the users in the organization. It’s very important for the portal to be user friendly
which facilitates them through the portal easily and helps them to gather required information.
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CHAPTER 3: DIALOGIC
3.1
Introduction
This chapter describes how a B-2-B products based company can use web portals to deliver
value to its clients. The case discussed here is that of Dialogic, a telecom network equipment
company that uses a web portal named Dialogic Exchange Network (DEN) to enable its clients
an easy access to the vast amount of documents, software downloads and media, related to its
products.
About Dialogic
Dialogic is an Intel spin-off company, dealing in telecom network hardware and software
solutions. Their solutions cover the following areas:
1.
2.
Contact Centre Transformation
3.
Unified Communications
4.
Application Enablement
5.
3.2
Any to Any Networking
Network Congestion Control
Web Portals at Dialogic
Being in the telecom and networks domain where the competition is always soaring Dialogic
feels the need to be up to date with the latest technologies available in IT that can help it build
and sustain its core competence. Dialogic makes use of a variety of web portals for this job.
Analysis of one of these portals (DEN) is a part of this project.
DEN (Dialogic Exchange Network)
As mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter Dialogic makes use of a client centred web
portal DEN (www.dialogic.com/den). This portal provides knowledge sharing through online
courses, documentation, interactive webinars and discussion forums. It has been influential in
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20. Web Portals
increasing customer intimacy and pulls a number of telecom application developers towards
Dialogic platforms.
3.3
Methodology
The data for this report has been collected from the Dialogic portals and through some secondary
sources.
3.4
Analysis
Figure 3: Dialogic Exchange Network (www.dialogic.com/den)
Dialogic Exchange Network
It is a closed network of Dialogic’s clients and other telecom enthusiasts who like to participate
in the online discussions and other activities all revolving around Dialogic’s area of expertise
(telecom network applications). It has enabled Dialogic to create a large number of followers
globally and is one of the major reasons why today most of Dialogic’s proprietary development
APIs have become informal industry standards.
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Although the main Dialogic website provides all the basic documentation for every product, yet
DEN is different in the way that it has real life scenarios discussed. It has active forums on every
product where customers can post the issues they encounter and Dialogic team provides
solutions. The whole of this process is interactive. With more than two participating parties in
every discussion the knowledge base that keeps on building up with time to time is humungous.
The major chunk of users to this portal can be divided into the following categories:
1.
External Users

Corporate Users: People from the top management of Dialogic’s client
companies come under this category. They visit DEN with a view to study about
out the future trends in telecom industry and to leverage upon any new products
that Dialogic has plans to roll out.

Development Teams of Clients: The development teams of Dialogic’s clients
use DEN extensively for the rich and up to date content that it has.

Other Developers: There is a group of followers that certain Dialogic products
have managed to create by now. These products known as Dialogic Legacy
products are so popular because they have been there in the market for more than
25 years by now.
2.
Internal Users

Presales and Marketing Teams: Dialogic’s presales and marketing teams keep
a close watch on the updates by the clients on these portals. This enables customer
intimacy and feedback.

Product Development Team:
Product development team manages various
threads in the forums on DEN. These threads capture customer issues and
feedback which help Dialogic in improving the quality of their products. It also
has threads on future technologies which help in studying market trends and
customer expectations from future Dialogic products. Product development uses
all this data to set future strategy.
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
Engineering Team: The engineering team in close association with product team
resolves customer queries on various forums.
3.5
Impact on End Users
1.
Increased Customer Intimacy: It helps in building better customer relations. As it is an
informal means of interaction the customers feel more comfortable. It is just like posting
on any social network. More over the marketing power of company also increases
through such tools as they come to know much more about their customers than from any
other means.
2.
Increased number of Followers: The portal is accessible not only to regular customers
but also to telecom enthusiasts who develop applications over various platforms just for
their personal interests. This is a growing trend in the market known as hardware
hacking. Dialogic has benefitted to such an extent that some of their proprietary coding
methods are now widely accepted all over the industry. This has helped in building the
brand image.
3.
Increased Value of Products: The vast amount of data gathered through these portals on
products and their use cases enables Dialogic to continuously add the desired
functionalities according to customer expectations.
4.
Decreased Turnaround Time: This portal helps dialogic to address the issues one step
ahead of the normal cycle. In normal product cycle a customer would raise a ticket which
Dialogic will then allocate to a development team which will resolve the problem.
Whereas, by using forums Dialogic can come to know of an issue slightly before hand
and start working on it. So Dialogic is ready with the solution by the time the ticket is
raised or even before that.
5.
Exposure of Product’s Weaknesses: Since customers post both positives and negatives
on the forum, Dialogic comes to know about the loop holes in their product and its
weaknesses. This is the area that Dialogic can work on to improve Quality of their
products.
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6.
Competitive Advantage: Since Dialogic started DEN long ago, it has gathered a vast
user base by now. This is an asset that is difficult to attain for any of the new entrant into
the market.
Challenges
1.
Going forward a major challenge for Dialogic would be to find out a way of organizing
the data they have available on their portal in such a way that it is accessible throughout
the company and are easily searchable.
2.
Apart from this Dialogic also needs to concentrate more on smart phone applications for
their portals. Most of the technology forums over the net have such portals a very popular
example is XDA developer’s forum.
3.6
Insights
1.
Web Portals can provide semi formal/informal means of communication which make
customers more intimate with the organizations.
2.
Customer Web Portals can help in gathering large amounts of data for predicting market
trends.
3.
Customer centric Web Portals can expose the weaknesses of a product without hampering
the brand image, if used wisely.
3.7
Conclusion
Dialogic has effectively used its customer centric web portal DEN to tackle a lot of issues of a
product based company. This shows that innovative use of IT applications can revolutionise the
way companies tackle their markets. Since Dialogic is a B2B products company it would not
have been possible for them to use conventional means of customer interaction so effectively.
More over the portal has helped their products in being accepted worldwide because of easily
available technical help and documentation.
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CHAPTER 4: FORE School of Management
4.1
Introduction
Today's education scenario is rapidly changing and demanding. The system demands greater
levels of communication between college, student and faculty members to have optimum use of
resources. Today's industry talent demands are soaring with more and more skills requirements
in all fields. FORE’s web portal fulfills these demands and enacts as a bridge of communication
amongst industries, students, faculties and colleges.
FORE’s web portal is basically a campus web portal which is a comprehensive site for all users
having an account(Student, Faculty, Staff) and the visitors who are simply looking for some
particular information. This analysis would be based on Student as the end user. Since FORE is a
non profitable organization, this would not come under any business service type (B2B or B2C).
This chapter would be focused on student as the end user. Students again can be classified as
prospect students & existing students.
FORE’s web portal has been designed with optimum navigation and best of site dynamics
consideration. Immediate and fast page responses and good student requirement understanding
makes it a good choice.
FORE’s
web
portal
is
based
on
Content
Management
System
(CMS) that
allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface.
Such systems of content management provide procedures to manage workflow in a collaborative
environment. CMS’s are often used to run websites containing blogs, news, and shopping. Many
corporate and marketing websites use CMSs. CMSs typically aim to avoid the need for hand
coding, but may support it for specific elements or entire pages.
4.2
Methodology
The data has been collected through secondary sources and from FORE’s Website.
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25. Web Portals
4.3
Analysis
Figure 4: FORE Web Portal (www.fsm.ac.in)
Features of FORE’s Web Portal
Zimbra (mail)
This system offers free 1.5 GB email-ID to every student, faculty member on the same institute website
for ease of communication in between college, faculties and students and to that of external world
spreading college brand identity by means of e-mail. This student portal system enriches administrator,
students and faculties with a variety of features as follows.
Claroline
Is an Assignment submission portal used by Students and updated by faculties. It’s an important portal
from student’s point of view but does not have a direct link from the home page and hence has to either
enter the URL or go to Home-> Student->elearning platform
25

26. Web Portals
These are list of few services available for students in this application. Students can update their profile,
view information on course, and submit assignments/projects
It has become collaborative & interactive and provides a wide range of information to different
set of users who visit the portal.
Fee Collection System
The payment aspect comes on this portion of the portal. This System is available on the home
page for convenience of students. This is available for the existing students as well as prospects
(Candidates who have been shortlisted) who want to pay the Fee.
Keywords in the Footers of the page to facilitate SEO
Certain keywords like placement, AICTE approved, Admissions, PGDM courses have been
provided in the footer of the page to facilitate search engine optimization. A prospect who is
looking forward to an institute providing PGDM courses when searches on google with any of
the above mentioned keywords will find FORE’s link in the first page of google search results.
Slide shows, News, Announcements:
This section highlights the latest events at FORE in the form of Pictures & videos. This again
gives a prospect student/visitor about latest happenings at FORE. News and announcements can
be viewed by anyone. It is more relevant to existing students, prospect, staff and faculty.
Student/Faculty/Alumni Speaks
This section contains Faculty interview, experiences shared by alumni and students. This is
contains content only.
Alumni Portal
This link directs to the alumni portal where past year students can login and connect with others
view information etc.
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27. Web Portals
Social Media
Facebook and twitter icons have been provided for collaboration and interaction on top right
corner. On clicking on these icons the page is directed to FORE’s profile page of the respective
social media platforms.
Disclosures
Mandatory Disclosure & AICTE Approval are the documents which every B school needs to
display on their home page. This disclosure is important for a candidate to select a B school as it
contains previous year statistics and accreditation information.
Admissions Portal
Prospects visiting the portal would want a quick link to admission related information. This link
becomes active on home page at the time admission process commences.
Other Features
Include contact detail, various department details (placement, MDP, Faculty profile),
Various student committee details etc.
ERP
Enterprise resource planning package called IEMS is being implemented at FORE which will
automate a number of processes which is being done manually currently. This will collaborate all
departments with the accounts department. From student’s point of view, the following services
will be available:
1.
The students can view their grades/marks updated by the faculty for the respective
subject.
2.
The attendance details can be viewed.
3.
The student can also send messages or view messages.
4.
View information/ get alerts about any events in the campus.
5.
Pay fee and view the history of previous payments.
6.
Share notes (soft copies)
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28. Web Portals
7.
New Applicants can apply to the institute and fill the application form.
Figure 5: FORE ERP System (http://erp.fsm.ac.in:8080/iems/)
4.4
Impact on End Users:
FORE’s website is user friendly in terms of its layout and font but there are sections on the web
portal (home page) which are not very relevant.
An advantage for users is that the user does not need to scroll down too much and makes it easy
for navigation.
Collaboration:
In the existing web portal there are very few collaborative tools like mail, social media. The ERP
can help to overcome this by automating most of the operations and better collaboration among
the users.
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29. Web Portals
4.5
Insights
It is very important to analyze who is the end user and based on this the most relevant
information has to be displayed on the portal to attract users.
A user friendly web portal makes it very convenient for the end user to gather information.
4.6
Conclusion

FORE’s portal even though has all the relevant links on the home page, it is cluttered at
time due to which the latest information is not highlighted or not getting much attention.
The good point is a user does not need to scroll down a lot to search for some information
in the home page.

The looks in terms of font and style are acceptable as compared to other B school
websites. Only thing is most relevant information should be most visible.

Once ERP is implemented, current leave updating system, claroline and many other
existing systems would not be required anymore.

Mail portal is not user friendly (Zimbra)

There is no option for search on the web portal currently.

There is no option of personalization of layout by the user as in other web portals.
Secondly the collaboration among the different users is limited. The ERP system can help
in overcoming this limitation.
29

30. Web Portals
Chapter 5: eBay External Web Portal
5.1
Introduction
eBay has been founded in September of 1995, eBay.com is a global online marketplace where
practically anyone can trade anything. eBay Inc. has a global presence in 39 markets, including
the U.S. Marketplaces have more than 112 million active users worldwide.
eBay India can be accessed on the mobile web on m.eBay.in & via a suite of Mobile Apps for
the iPhone, the iPad, the Android, Windows & Nokia platforms. eBay has external portal for
their end user and sellers through which they can access for buying and selling
eBay provides a C2C service. Sellers and Buyers cannot communicate directly thus eBay acts as
a channel between the two.
5.2
Methodology
Data has been collected through secondary sources and eBay external web portal for end users
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31. Web Portals
5.3
Analysis
Figure 6: EBAY Home Screen (www.ebay.in)
5.3.1 Buyer
1.
eBay web portal provides extensive search engine for buyers who look for good deal on
electronics like phones, laptops, television etc.
2.
eBay web portal also provides feature of “MyPaisaPay” where Buyer register them on
eBay and can make transactions online through credit card or net banking.
3.
It also provides customer support option where buyer can ask few popular questions for
e.g. what do I do if I don’t receive my item?
Advantages of eBay for Buyers

eBay portal provides easy way to shop by eBay guarantee where eBay provides 100%
return of shopping item.

eBay “PaisaPay “ send buyer’s money to seller after the buyer is 100% satisfied with the
product.

Anyone can sell or buy on eBay portal by registering and providing certain information
personal and financial.
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32. Web Portals
5.3.2
Seller
1.
eBay web portal provides option of “sell”. Where to sell on eBay you need to register and
get verified as a seller. First seller needs to Create a Seller's Account, second you need to
Prepare your item, List the item for sale then Track your listing and at last Receive
payment and complete the sale.
Figure 7: EBAY Seller Section (http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation)
2.
seller can sell their product in two ways :

Auction: Highest bidder wins the item.

Buy It Now: A fixed price is given for an item.
3.
Sellers pay fee to eBay to sell their product through online Marketplace.
4.
Sellers need to register on eBay and Paisa Pay then they need to choose what they want
to sell and at last prepare your photos and description.
5
The photos and description should be creative for effective selling online.
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33. Web Portals
3.
Seller tool
Figure 8: eBay Seller Tool
3 a)
New Turbo Lister
The FREE desktop software tool designed to make listing items faster and easier.
1.
List offline - saving you money on internet connection fees and lots of time.
2.
Use eBay's Designer Templates for FREE
3.
Simple to use design editing so you can edit your listing as you write it
Save templates you create so you can use them again and again!
3 b)
Selling Manager
Selling Manager is eBay's online after sales management tool, accessed through My eBay. It
makes the after listing process much simpler.
1.
Relist multiple items at once.
2.
Get a one-page snapshot of your business
3.
Track buying, selling and account activities
4.
Reduce the time you spend on emails with custom templates
5.
Print shipping labels and invoices
6.
Selling Manager has a small fee of Rs. 199 per month.
3 c) Selling Manager Pro
Selling Manager Pro is an all-in-one seller tool to assist you with the entire sales cycle. It
combines inventory management, bulk listing and after sales management.
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34. Web Portals
5.3.3 Insight

Web Portal can provide formal and semi formal means of communication which make
buyers and sellers more intimate with the companies.

C2C Web portal have to be designed more user friendly manner as compare to B2C since
they are more consumer driven.
5.3.4 Conclusion
External web portal of eBay is user friendly for buyers and sellers but since the vertical scrolling
is too large it is indented to be used with high-speed Internet connection and since the Internet
bandwidth in India is not good eBay should work towards making their Web page more
bandwidth efficient.
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35. Web Portals
CHAPTER 6: Yahoo
6.1
Introduction
Yahoo stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”. It Incorporated is an internet
service provider that serves both users and business globally. The company was founded in 1994
by David Filo and Jerry Yang who were attending Stanford’s University's PhD program.
Yahoo!
is
an
American multinational internet
corporation
head
quartered
in Sunnyvale, California. It is widely known for its web portal, search engine Yahoo! Search,
and related services, including Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo!
Finance, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy
sports and its social media website. It is one of the most popular sites in the United States.
According to news sources, roughly 700 million people visit Yahoo! websites every month.
Yahoo! itself claims it attracts "more than half a billion consumers every month in more than 30
languages."
Yahoo! Inc. was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on
March 1, 1995. On July 16, 2012, former Google executive Marissa Mayer was named as
Yahoo! CEO and President, effective July 17, 2012.
Yahoo! grew rapidly throughout the 1990s. Like many search engines and web directories,
Yahoo! added a web portal. Yahoo! operates a portal that provides the latest news,
entertainment, and sports information. The portal also gives users access to other Yahoo!
services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo!
Messenger.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!
6.2
Methodology
Generally, user preference for a web site is indirectly measured through an interview or a
questionnaire. Criteria for users’ preference-making include usability, performance, aesthetics,
information quality and architecture, brand, and so forth. Users consciously or subconsciously
35

36. Web Portals
assign different weights to these factors when making their preferences. In this sense, the present
study investigates different impacts based on user preference for web portals Yahoo! , and users’
psychological characteristics in evaluating those web portals are considered. Findings related to
these objectives can be consequently used as basis of constructing a conceptual model for the
process of users’ preference-making and suggesting design strategies to yield more preferred
websites.
Figure 9: Yahoo Portal (http://in.yahoo.com/)
6.3
Analysis
Yahoo web portal, is a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way.
Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail,
news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for
enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple
applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.
Yahoo! is included in the category of public web portals
6.3.1 Impact of web portal on the end users: YAHOO users
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37. Web Portals

Communication: Yahoo! provides Internet communication services such as Yahoo!
Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! provided social networking services and usergenerated content, including products such as My Web, Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo!
360°, Delicious, Flickr, and Yahoo! Buzz. Yahoo! closedYahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog

Content: Yahoo! partners with numerous content providers in products such as Yahoo!
Sports, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo!
News, Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! Games to provide news and related content. Yahoo!
provides a personalization service, My Yahoo!, which enables users to combine their
favorite Yahoo! features, content feeds and information onto a single page.

Mobile Services: Yahoo! Mobile offers services for email, instant messaging,
and mobile blogging, as well as information services, searches and alerts. Services for the
camera phone include entertainment and ring tones.

Commerce: Yahoo! offers shopping services such as Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo!
Autos, Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Travel, which enables users to gather relevant
information and make commercial transactions and purchases online.

Small
business: Yahoo! provides business services such as Yahoo!
DomainKeys, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Business Email
and Yahoo! Store to small business owners and professionals allowing them to build their
own online stores using Yahoo!'s tools.

Advertising: Yahoo! Search marketing provides services such as Sponsored Search,
Local Advertising and Product/Travel/Directory Submit that let different businesses
advertise their products and services on the Yahoo! network.

Y!Connect: Y!Connect enables individuals to leave comments in online publication
boards by using their Yahoo! ID, instead of having to register with individual
publications. The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo! plans to mimic this strategy
used by rival Facebook Inc. to help drive traffic to its site.

Yahoo! Accessibility: Yahoo! has invested resources to increase and improve access to
the internet for the disabled community through the Yahoo! Accessibility Lab.[50]
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38. Web Portals
6.4
Conclusion
Yahoo has great usability and huge traffic because it embraces the characteristics of the Internet
medium: minimalist design and many structured links.
The real reason Yahoo is so successful is that it embraces the new medium and designs for its
strengths rather than fighting its weaknesses.
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39. Web Portals
Chapter 7: Conclusion
We have tried to compare the four web portal on the basis of the following
1.
Home page. How informative is the home page? Does it set the proper context for
visitors? Is it just an annoying splash page with multimedia? How fast does it load?
2.
Navigation. Is the global navigation consistent from page to page? Do major sections
have local navigation? Is it consistent?
3.
Site organization. Is the site organization intuitive and easy to understand?
4.
Links and labels. Are labels on section headers and content groupings easy to
understand? Are links easy to distinguish from each other? Or are they ambiguous and
uninformative ("click here" or "white paper")? Are links spread out in documents, or
gathered conveniently in sidebars or other groupings?
5.
Search and search results. Is the search engine easy to use? Are there basic and
advanced search functions? What about search results? Are they organized and easy to
understand? Do they give relevance weightings or provide context? Do the search results
remind you what you searched for?
6.
Readability. Is the font easy to read? Are line lengths acceptable? Is the site easy to scan,
with chunked information, or is it just solid blocks of text?
7.
Performance. Overall, do pages load slowly or quickly? Are graphics and applications
like search and multimedia presentations optimized for easy Web viewing?
8.
Content. Is their sufficient depth and breadth of content offerings? Does the content
seem to match the mission of the organization and the needs of the audience? Is the site
developing its own content or syndicating other sources? Is there a good mix of in-depth
material (detailed case studies, articles, and white papers) versus superficial content
(press releases, marketing copy)?
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40. Web Portals
Comparison Chart
FORE
KPMG
eBay
Dialogic
Education
Non Profit
Informative but
congested.
Easy as everything is
available at one place
Order of Relevant
information not
appropriate
Easy to understand
Consultancy
B2E
Simple
E-Commerce
C2C
Too much vertical scrolling
Easy
Easy
Software
B2B/B2C
Divided into sections but
congested with links
Easy
Uncluttered
Congested
Categorized as per user
types
Useful links available
Easy to understand
Search and
search results
Readability
No search option
available
Readable &
acceptable
Easy
Easy
Home page is flooded
with links but it is in sync
with this category of
portals
Easy
Readable
Readable
Performance
Efficient but graphics
should be reduced
Too much content on
home page
Easy as everything is
available at one place.
Possible
Relevant to student
Efficient
Efficient
Relevant
Too much content on the
home page
User friendly
Industry
Service Type
Home Page
Navigation
Site organization
Links and labels
Content
User Friendly
Remote Access
Targeted
Content
Easy
Possible
Indented for Internet User
Relevant for buyers and
seller
Headings Easily readable,
but details look a bit
cluttered
Meant for use with high
speed internet connections
Vast but organized
Friendly assuming the end
users will be tech savvy
Possible through internet
Knowledge hub for clients
and enthusiasts.
Table 1: Comparison Chart
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41. Web Portals
Limitations of the study:

The report is not based on statistical information. It reflects a qualitative analysis of the web
portals of different industries based on the end user.

This analysis does consider the use of backend technologies used in the portals instead is based
on user experience.
41

42. Web Portals
References
Referred the following websites:

http://portal.kma.kworld.kpmg.com

www.fsm.ac.in

www.dialogic.com/den

www.ebay.in

http://pages.ebay.in/sellerinformation/
Books:
Running a perfect web site. -- 1998 Wynkoop, Stephen 007.4.1 W981
42