Benefits of Web Platform Consolidation and Standardization

by Ken Withee

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Wouldn't it be wonderful if an organization could just appear out of the dark ages (before the Internet) and adopt the latest technology? If such a scenario were to occur, the newly awakened organization could avail itself of the latest standards. The result would be a tightly integrated ecosystem of computer technology all working together in harmony. Unfortunately such a scenario almost never happens.

Technology disparity comes with time

Most organizations have adopted technology in starts and fits and waves. Someone in the accounting department might have developed a purchasing website in the 1990s. The purchasing website might be based on data from an advanced Excel spreadsheet that everyone uses but nobody understands. The data might be keyed into a text document and then pulled onto the purchasing website for reporting purposes.

Or, someone in the human resources department might have taken a series of typewritten forms and converted them to digital Microsoft Word documents in 1997. Then in 2000 the same person might have decided that it was a pain to email those forms around and created a series of shared folders. Then in 2004 an ambitious human resources director might have hired a consulting firm to develop a page on the company intranet web portal that would display the documents that were in the shared folder for easy access. In 2005 the IT department might have adopted SharePoint Server and people throughout the organization might be using pieces of it here and there alongside the existing legacy web systems.

In the past, when a solution was implemented or developed it might have been the absolute correct decision. The problems occur over time as disparate solutions build up. It is like a city that has grown up without central planning. You might have three or four separate water systems, a couple of crusty and dilapidated sewage systems that are not connected, clogged roads, and little zoning. Just as cities need to go through phases of consolidation and standardization, so too does an organization's technology landscape. As a decision maker, you may be all too familiar with the disparate systems and diverse landscape at your own organization.

Standardization reduces cost

Whether you are considering the cost of running a poorly functioning city or an organization with a hodgepodge of technologies, the result is the same: The costs are higher than necessary because of duplication of effort and breadth of knowledge required across a multitude of systems.

In the case of our hypothetical city, you need a body of expert knowledge in four different types of water systems. In the case of technology, the same cost discrimination holds true. Your web platform might have three different database systems and 20 different websites built using 5 different programming languages. Just to maintain the required expertise might require three or four times the manpower of having a single standardized web platform.

Choose your standard wisely

As organizations consolidate and standardize their web platform, a clear winner has been Microsoft SharePoint Server. SharePoint Server often wins this contest for a number of reasons, but it is not the only solution. Most major software organizations have a web platform. Some are more mature than others and have different levels of support.

What often happens in computer software is a tipping point of adoption. The tipping point happens when a software company produces a viable product that is adopted and accepted by a large number of organizations. This adoption creates a community of experts that propel the particular technology even further.

The phenomenon can be witnessed throughout the corporate software world and also the consumer world. Take the iPhone as an example. Apple was able to create a device that enough people adopted and accepted as a standard. The adoption of the consumer base propelled application developers to build software for the device, which in turn shifted technical expertise towards the iPhone platform. At the other end of the spectrum are completely custom solutions. A custom solution is difficult for any organization because there is no common shared community of expertise outside of the organization.

Products like SharePoint Server and the iPhone are not perfect, but they don’t have to be. They just have to be able to achieve their desired result. The momentum that a product has is based on acceptance, adoption, and standardization across industries. These factors are critical when making a decision about your own organization.