By Beth Schultz
Network World, 6/29/98

When it comes time to evaluate an intranet project at Cendant Corp., determining whether the undertaking will yield a good return on investment (ROI) better be the last thing on a business manager's mind.

The intranet team shuns the idea of elaborate ROI justifications. "If it isn't obvious that we are saving significant amounts of money, then we shouldn't do the project," says Scott Chin, intranet project manager at Cendant, a consumer and business services company in Stamford, Conn.

And when Chin says savings, he's talking cash. "We never quote soft dollars - they're too hard to measure and they show no value," he says.

So when the intranet team tallies the savings associated with putting a report online rather than distributing print copies, for example, it does so based on the cost of the paper and the toner alone - not on any nebulous projections for productivity gains or whatnot. Chin expects the company to save $250,000 in paper costs this year because he has started posting sales reports, culled from data stored on a mainframe, on the intranet.

More impressive is the $2 million or more Cendant expects to save annually because the intranet team has put a phone service bill- and credit-tracking application on the company Web. Or the $300,000 the company should save this year because of a new advertising extranet.

The AdLink extranet lets advertising and product managers review and approve ad materials for clients, and it provides a way to get ad mechanicals to clients quickly for their approval. Cendant ad managers post mechanicals on an extranet site, then notify clients that a job awaits approval. Clients log on to the secure site, then download Portable Document Format files for viewing.

Chin attributes the savings, which he expects to increase by 50% in 1999, to the elimination of mailing, shipping and fax costs. He's also factored in the wages of temporary workers Cendant no longer needs because of AdLink.

As word gets out about savings such as these, the intranet team finds itself inundated with project requests. While he appreciates the excitement surrounding the intranet, Chin says he often needs to temper people's enthusiasm. "I want to dispel the idea that it's easy to do an intranet application and to make people understand that it actually takes some development and could require security."

Before the intranet team will consider a project, Chin makes sure the business manager has a clear set of requirements. "People think the intranet can solve everything, and make toast, too," he says.

The application also has to have a small technology footprint, Chin says. For example, the intranet team wouldn't undertake a project that requires support for a proprietary groupware program and four different Web browsers. Keeping a small technology footprint doesn't mean limiting product choices. "We use freeware, shareware and vendor negotiations to obtain and implement technologies that are leading edge," Chin says.

In doing so, the intranet team has built a high-value, self-funded corporate Web without spending much money. "Most of the projects I run cost less than $3,000," Chin says.

For the most part, Chin encourages use of Microsoft Corp. software, such as FrontPage for authoring, Internet Explorer for browsing, Access for prototyping applications and SQL Server for departmental databases. He provides policies and guidelines, but doesn't "force anything down people's throats." However, he adds, the intranet team won't support products to which it hasn't committed.

Chin breaks away from the Microsoft lineup only if another vendor offers something that Microsoft does not or will never provide. Two such examples are the intranet team's use of Forest Computer, Inc.'s Legacy Press software to deliver host reports and Net-It Software Corp.'s Net-It Central Server and Net-It Now client for easy content publishing.

Cendant's intranet manager chose the user-friendly Net-It and FrontPage because approximately 100 business managers across the company are the ones filling the intranet with basic content. The intranet team provides advice on what type of information departments should publish, but leaves the actual postings to the managers - it's too busy developing intranet applications.

Chin makes an interesting distinction between intranet content and applications. "Content is really where you get a bang for your buck. Applications bring the technological business advantage."

The potentials are plentiful, says Michael Bodetti, vice president of telecommunications and desktop technologies. "We've got to pick and choose which [applications] make the most sense."

At times, augmenting a business process by attaching a little piece of the Web fits that bill. Other times, creating new business processes for the intranet is more logical. But then again, using the intranet to change - that is, improve - a business process often makes the most sense, Bodetti says.

The latter is the priority, maybe because identifying business processes in need of improvement isn't too tough. "We're an extremely fast-paced company, so a lot of business people haven't taken the opportunity to figure out how things can be done better. The intranet lets us do that for them," Bodetti says.

The intranet team, for example, now posts online phone reports generated by the company's automatic call distributor and PBX systems. Department managers still must view and report on phone use, but they can do so by pointing and clicking their way through a few screens rather than wading through reams of paper to find the bill portions for which they're responsible.

By the same token, a call-data-records (CDR) intranet application makes it much easier for business managers to reconcile their records for outbound phone calls against the formal CDR or to approve the records. A process that used to require a few days to collect, sort and deliver reports can now be done simply by posting all the data online. Business managers can query phone numbers by entering the extension number and a date range.

The intranet team sends out an e-mail tickler reminding business managers that it's time to check the CDR. The message includes a URL link to the page with the information.The team has its share of experience augmenting existing procedures and creating new ones, too.

The intranet, for example, has made it possible to create a central clearinghouse for client information. A sales manager can go to the "Client Info" site to find contact information and read up on the status of relationships a client has with other parts of the sprawling Cendant organization. "Our managers . . . can quickly find out the if the client is hot, warm or cool on our services," Chin explains.

The intranet also sits behind www.netmarket. com, the Internet site Cendant launched last summer. If you sign up for a NetMarket membership, you can buy everything from automobiles to frozen peas from the site. Cendant estimates the number of transactions handled on this site at 60,000 per month, for a yearly revenue of $1 billion.

Browser-wielding NetMarket representatives manage the Internet site. They handle membership requests and place orders from an intranet application that ties into a variety of host systems.

NetMarket perhaps epitomizes all of Cendant's future business applications. Cendant's chief information officer wants all production processes accessible via a browser, so developers front-end any new application with the Web. The Big Iron, though, keeps pumping away in the background.

"We will continue using legacy systems for their sheer processing power, but the GUI of choice is the Web," says Chin, noting that by the year 2000 the Web interface will have infiltrated into middle-tier servers as well and will open a whole slew of potential intranet applications.

Chin and his team, no doubt, will use the same common sense to evaluate those opportunities. "If we have to dig to find an ROI," Chin stresses, "then we aren't working on the right project."