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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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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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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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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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5.2 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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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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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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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:

Personal portals

News portals

Government web portals

Cultural portals

Stock portals

Search portals

Tender's portals

Hosted web portals

Domain-specific portals

1.2 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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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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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 user-

based 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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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. Any to Any Networking

2. Contact Centre Transformation

3. Unified Communications

4. Application Enablement

5. Network Congestion Control

3.2 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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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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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

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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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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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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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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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

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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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Communication: Yahoo! provides Internet communication services such as Yahoo!

Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! provided social networking services and user-

generated 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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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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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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Comparison Chart

FORE KPMG eBay Dialogic

Industry Education Consultancy E-Commerce Software

Service Type Non Profit B2E C2C B2B/B2C

Home Page Informative but

congested.

Simple Too much vertical scrolling Divided into sections but

congested with links

Navigation Easy as everything is

available at one place

Easy Easy Easy

Site organization Order of Relevant

information not

appropriate

Uncluttered Congested Categorized as per user

types

Links and labels Easy to understand Useful links available Easy to understand Home page is flooded

with links but it is in sync

with this category of

portals

Search and

search results

No search option

available

Easy

Easy

Easy

Readability Readable &

acceptable

Readable Readable Headings Easily readable,

but details look a bit

cluttered

Performance Efficient but graphics

should be reduced

Efficient Efficient Meant for use with high

speed internet connections

Content Too much content on

home page

Relevant Too much content on the

home page

Vast but organized

User Friendly Easy as everything is

available at one place.

Easy User friendly Friendly assuming the end

users will be tech savvy

Remote Access Possible Possible Indented for Internet User Possible through internet

Targeted

Content

Relevant to student Relevant for buyers and

seller

Knowledge hub for clients

and enthusiasts. Table 1: Comparison Chart

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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.

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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