Audi has installed a complete portal platform based on IBM (News - Alert) WebSphere Portal. This portal has been implemented to serve as a central, integrated and multilingual access point for all Audi employees worldwide, with content personalized to employee position.

Volkswagen-owned Audi is based in Ingolstadt, Germany. Audi had to tackle the dispute of implementing new measures as internationalization shaped the need for corporate change, as well as reorganizing employee behavior and organizational Human Resource Management (HRM) tasks.

"Our aim was to provide new technologies and online media that would enable our employees to gain comfortable, quick, Web-based access to all relevant services, information and communication offerings. Together with IBM we managed to achieve this goal in a very short time," said Anton Kramm, head of IT Web solutions at Audi, in a press release.

WebSphere Portal facilitates a central platform that enables all work and trade activities to be handled without re-typing data or exchanging from one medium to another, therefore making these processes faster and more proficient. Besides accessing trade applications, Audi employees can now make use of customized desktops through the portal platform, enabling them to carry out administrative jobs such as applying for vacation or booking flights.

"The new employee portal puts a flexible information and communication platform at the disposal of Audi that allows all business processes to be integrated independently of their respective application platforms,” said Sebastian Krause, vice president of the Software Group, IBM Germany. “This enables the company to optimize the working, information and knowledge processes that are indispensable to keeping up with the relentless pace of change in today's market."

The merits of the Audi portal include:

--Audi portal acts as a central server for a range of locations and international subsidiaries of Audi

--All Audi employees worldwide can enjoy single-sign on and net based access to any services and information they need

--It is a suitable tool for employees to handle and customize individual job processes

These customized information and procedures are accessible to each employee -- that is, modified to their individual roles and duties. It is made available through portlets that supply applicable information and measures to their precise assignments.

Audi portal has decreased the administrative procedures by reducing the number of HTML pages in the intranet from 240,000 to 40,000, which has been made possible without any loss of content and has decreased the number of applications by establishing standard solutions for instance Content and Document Management Systems. Audi plans to prolong evolving its portal policy by developing "process portals" and accumulating newer functions for instance Cooperation Services and Data Structuring.

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Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.