Web and Exchange in BP’s lntranet

David Wolstenholme Knowledge Management Team British Petroleum Chertsey Road Sunbury-on-Thames Middlesex TW16 7LN UK

Tel: +44 (0)1932 763511

Introduction

This paper focuses on BP’s introduction and use of Web technologies internally in BP’s Intranet. It considers the benefits expected of an Intranet within the BP context, looks at the approach taken to its roll-out throughout the company, outlines some of the applications to which the Web is being put, draws out some of the lessons learned from BP’s experience, and looks at some future opportunities.

BP’s roll-out of the Web coincided with (and became part of) a wider change in its IT infrastructure: the introduction of its new Common Operating Environment (COE), which includes the provision of Microsoft Exchange to all BP’s desktops. Both the Web and Exchange provide users with the means of publishing documents to a large number of people across the Group. The paper also positions these technologies and discusses some of ways in which the Web and Exchange are being integrated and used in collaboration to deliver value to the company.

Benefits of the Web in the BP context

Until recently, the various Business Units or Assets in BP were controlled from a number of Regional Centres based around the world in its three business streams (Exploration, Oil and Chemicals). These Regional Centres, which in turn reported back to the Group Centre, generally provided local functional support to its Business Units. The organization has now been transformed into one in which there is a Federation of about 80 Business Units, each of which reports directly back to the Group Centre, with no intermediate levels of reporting. Whilst these Business Units have greater autonomy than previously, and have their own performance contracts, they are not independent and are expected to work together and help each other to maximize the performance of the Federation as a whole.

This delayering of the Group organization was accompanied by a more general flattening of hierarchies within the organization, downsizing, greater use of outsourcing, and the development of strategic Alliances and other distinctive relationships with external bodies.

Some of the implications of these changes were:

0 previous relationships and channels of support were disturbed; 0 much of the knowledge that BP needs for its activities now lies outside the

organization.

BP realized that in order to achieve its objectives of achieving growth in performance of its individual Business Units and of maximizing performance across the Group, with a decentralized, delayered organization and with increasingly complex internal and external relationships, it needed:

0 greatly improved networking and linkage, both within and across the Business Units, and with those with whom BP has relationships;

0 improved business processes and new ways of doing business.

The Web - fast becoming the de facto standard for information-sharing, was seen as a way of simplifying and unifying access to information, knowledge and people, whether inside or outside BP. The expected impacts of universal usage of Web technology in BP ranged from:

0 improved organisational learning and transfer of knowledge - best practice and lessons learned - leading to improved productivity and return on investment;

0 improved networking; 0 exposure and avoidance of duplication of effort; 0 opportunities for new creative ways of doing business; and 0 reduced publishing costs;

to the more subtle impacts, such as

0 professional staff are freed up to concentrate on more value-adding activities; 0 a more open culture, and a greater sense of community within the organization; and 0 support for Group integration.

History and evolution of the Web

Not long after BP staff were given access to the World-Wide Web in 1994, various teams or units started to explore the use of the Web for sharing or publishing information internally. The first fully-supported Web site was set up in mid-1995 to promote the sharing of information about Exploration R&D projects among the researchers and the customers in the Business Units.

Early in 1996, an IT Colloquium was held, whch brought in key players and renowned experts in the IT and knowledge management arenas to give greater awareness to BP’s Group Leadership of the benefits of

0 a common IT platform and infrastructure across the Group; 0 development of a Group Intranet; and 0 enhanced knowledge management.

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After this, Intranet was declared to be strategic, and an Intranet Project was set up with a brief to:

work with those in IT and others to ensure an adequate server and network infrastructure; make the Business aware of the benefits of Intranet, and encourage them to explore its use; link together those involved in Intranet; put in place an Intranet search engine (Verity was chosen and deployed); and develop an information-sharing framework, realized in the form of a Group Intranet Home Page.

BP’s Common Operating Environment (COE)

After the IT Colloquium, the go-ahead was also given for the roll-out across BP of a common IT platform and infrastructure, called the Common Operating Environment (COE). This was intended to move BP from a position where it used a variety of networking software (Netware and NT), desktop platforms (PCs and Macs), system software (Windows 3.1 1 and Mac OS), email systems (MS Mail and All-in-1), and a range of MS Office software versions, to one where there is commonality across the Group.

COE has an NT server backbone, with PCs running Windows 95 with core desktop software that includes Exchange (for Public Folders and messaging), MS Office 95 and MS Internet Explorer as a Web browser.

When complete (completion expected in 1998), about 35000 COE desktops will have been installed.

Roll-out of Web into BP is largely dependent on COE roll-out, although the take-up of Web browsers has tended to precede the deployment of COE in many cases, as use of the Intranet has expanded.

Applications of the Web

The range of applications for the Web in BP is wide and includes:

publicizing Business Unit, team and network objectives, performance contracts, achievements, activities, organigrams and contacts; publishing reports, policies, manuals and guidelines; internal job advertising; internal news broadcasting; sharing best practices and lessons learned; updating and sharing skills and contact details; providing information about sites, services and travel; interactive database interfaces; multimedia (video and sound) presentations of workshops and meetings;

0 training and course information; 0 near-real-time reporting of events (regular updates of presentations, audio and

video clips and feedback from others around the Group via the Web back into the event).

Extranets are being increasingly used for communicating with partners, customers and suppliers, and as a basis for electronic commerce.

Web and Exchange

Both the Web and Exchange Public Folders provide users with a way of sharing information with a large number of others across the Group.

The Web has the major advantage that its documents (in HTML) are often highly graphical, dynamic and attractive to users, and, more generally, that the Web interface is found to be easy to use. It also has the current advantage in BP that only the Web has a search engine, so that, in conjunction with hyperlinking, navigation is far easier and documents placed on the Web are more likely to be found

Whilst Exchange Public Folders have an interface that is generally found to be unattractive and boring, they do have certain advantages: 0 ease of publishing and updating documents; 0 user-managed access control; 0 comments and additional documents can be easily attached to existing ones, and

can be viewed structured as conversation topics or discussions; 0 integration with mail to allow users to be notified when documents are added.

Given these characteristics, BP users have been given the following recommendations:

0 use the Web when you require the benefits of hyperlinking, or are out to impress by the appearance of the document, or when the document may be relevant to a large, but unknown audience;

0 use Exchange Public Folders when you’re collaborating on documents, when you want comments on a document, or when you’re making the document available to a known audience only, e.g. a team or network. Also, use Exchange to support workflow, if required, and as the basis of discussion or question and answer forums, in conjunction with email.

In practice, use of these is frequently integrated, so that a network’s Home Page may include a link (via a shortcut) to its discussion forum in Exchange, while a team’s Exchange Folder, used for sharing its day-to-day work, will include links to its Web pages where final, published documents are made available.

The names of the top-level Exchange Public Folders has been made consistent with the categoriedheadings of the Group Intranet Home Page, in an attempt to provide a consistent information-sharing framework.

Lessons Learned

A number of issues have arisen with the use of Web (and Exchange), and a number of lessons have been learned.

Getting started

introduce Intranet in steps, building on the parts of the Business that are enthusiastic, who will demonstrate the benefits to others; introduce a search engine and a frameworWdirectory as soon as possible - both are essential;

0 position Web and other technologies so that users know which to use.

Publishing and maintaining documents

0 Web publishing is not easy. Users need to be given appropriate software and training for creating Web documents, and provided with simple processes for publishing them on the Web; the demand for support for the development and maintenance of Web sites rises rapidly; maintenance can be time-consuming - and links needs continual updating and checking to reduce the problem of dead-ends.

Ownership

0 the need for documents to be clearly marked with details of the author and the date when modified cannot be over-emphasized; without these the value of a document is greatly reduced;

0 only owners should publish documents, otherwise duplication and confusion can arise.

Security/access control

0 it is important to ensure that it is easy to restrict access to certain Web sites. This is particularly true if some third parties have access to your Intranet who are partners in one place but competitors in another. If restrictions on access, e.g. to staff only, cannot be easily provided, the owners of information or knowledge can be wary of sharing - ultimately to the detriment of the company overall.

Future Opportunities

BP sees the Web, in the future, as its principal means of accessing contacts, knowledge, information, data and applications - both internally and extemally . As technology permits, the distinctions between Intranet and Extranet are likely to fade, and the Web should allow the information owner easily to specify who should have access to the information, whether they be internal or external.

Improved search and delivery of information will be enabled by the provision of search engines that cover Exchange and other information sources as well as Web, and by the provision of intelligent agents to deliver new, relevant information to users. It may also be possible to put users in contact with others who are searching for similar things, or who have requested information on similar topics to be delivered to them,, thus increasing personal linkage and improving the sharing of knowledge across the company.

Currently, most uses of the Web in BP are for publishing documents or accessing data; uses for wider support of business processes and workflow are likely to increase, as are applications for electronic commerce.

Lastly, BP would like to make the Web more sociable, interactive and informal. Firstly, this would enable users to offer insights on information found on the Web even when none have been asked for. Secondly, it is believed that the greater the use of the Web, the greater the chance of useful, serendipitous encounters that improve the sharing of knowledge across the Group.

0 1997 The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Printed and published by the IEE, Savoy Place, London WC2R OBL, UK.