Making portals work: Enterprise portal services outlook

Highly adaptive business applications will be more easily created and managed through the portal platform when process management features are available. Knowledge workers can design, implement and improve on corporate business processes with minimal IT resources. That enables the capture of know-how from experts, reducing the impact of employee turnover and decreasing future employee training costs. Furthermore, it's easier to consistently and reliably execute tasks to achieve corporate goals. As more portal vendors begin to offer process management capabilities, the financial benefits associated with implementing portals will be more readily recognized by the marketplace, driving further adoption.

The EPS offerings

All the providers profiled in the study indicated that they deliver formalized EPS offerings to the marketplace. Competitive offerings differ in terms of their maturity, if measured by the time they were first formally delivered to the marketplace. By that measure alone, all of the EPS offerings in the study are relatively mature--with 50% of the offerings provisioned by 1998, 72% by 2000, and 100% by 2001.

The delivery, management and approach to formalized EPS offerings vary greatly among the services providers. For the larger services organizations, most EPS offerings are simply a feature of a much larger solution. Many are delivered by services organizations with horizontal EPS practices and capabilities (under umbrella KM practices), which are sold and delivered by industry groups. In certain organizations, industry groups perform the management and delivery of those services, with high-level, internal KM councils that ensure the sharing of knowledge and best practices. EPS competencies most often reside in organizations that have strong integration capabilities or expertise in delivering content management and collaboration software.

Revenue by engagement type

In 2002, the majority of revenue from EPS engagements was IT-related, principally derived by systems integration, application development and IT consulting activities. Overall, revenue from business-related engagements or activities is relatively small, driven predominately by business consulting activities.

In 2003, business consulting is expected to grow significantly as a percentage of overall revenue. That shift is supported by the growth of EPS professionals with business expertise. As more enterprise portals cross enterprise divisions and functions, the need for business alignment will be critical. Business process expertise in that regard will also be fundamental in ensuring that the alignment is successful.

The service providers were involved in more than 1,100 EPS implementations in 2002. The number of anticipated implementations was expected to grow by 41% in 2003 (see Figure 2). Although given recent IT trends there is reason to doubt such bullish expectations, many providers are already on their way of achieving their year-end expectations.

Recommendations

IDC offers the following suggestions to EPS vendors:

• As portal implementations shift from the department to the enterprise and beyond the firewall, vendors must understand that corporate governance, sponsorship and ownership are crucial issues.
  
• The underlying success of any EPS engagement is determined by whether users find portals helpful in enhancing their decision-making and productivity. As implementations rise in scope and complexity, service providers must develop a wide range of both business and IT services skill sets and resources.
  
• Service providers should integrate business process management (BPM) capabilities with portal offerings to use corporate information and applications effectively. Service providers need strong business and technology expertise, as well as domain industry capabilities.

Competitive landscape and analysis

IDC surveyed 18 vendors in the enterprise portal services (EPS) space and observed the following:

• More than 77% of the services providers are headquartered in North America, with 16% in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and the rest in Asia/Pacific.
• All of the EPS offerings highlighted in the study are relatively mature--with 50% having been provisioned by 1998, 72% by 2000, and 100% by 2001.
• The discrete services revenue figures ranged from $2.3 million to $121.6 million for a total of $408 million in 2002. The report of surveyed vendors and IDC's estimates from survey findings suggest a robust services growth rate in 2003 over 2002.
• The Americas region forms the largest area in terms of revenue, followed by EMEA and Asia/Pacific. Based on IDC estimates and expectations provided by vendors, it is anticipated that Asia/Pacific will grow the fastest in 2003, followed by EMEA.