A strategic objective calls for CS to embrace e-Business to improve employee productivity, simplify work processes, and make it easier to do business with, and within, the Division. An educational campaign, used to familiarize employees with the initiative, espouses the philosophy that "e-Business is the business," reinforcing that it is not an Information Systems or Information Technology program.

"Technology is the easy part, but changing business processes to enable them through the Internet is a difficult task," says Jim Prangley, CS e-Business program manager. "We've also discovered that changing the culture to drive acceptance is equally difficult."

The e-Business initiative meant moving key facilities-related activities, such as tracking internal customer orders, onto the Internet in order to eliminate unnecessary work for Intel's 3,600 CS employees worldwide and to lower the cost of doing business. As the company's facilities management organization, CS employees handle many diverse functions, including facilities operations, corporate real estate, construction, information systems, strategic planning, public affairs, security, and environmental health and safety.

Streamlining the business processes of the CS group, which maintains an annual budget of approximately $2 billion and manages about 41 million sf of space, is important to Intel's global success. CS provides more than 500 services to Intel's 80,000 employees who work in about 135 locations worldwide.

Prioritization of specific CS e-Business initiatives first required identifying known methods (KMs), the processes by which functional groups performed their daily operational tasks. Once KMs were identified, determining what constituted the Best Known Methods (BKMs) was the next step. BKMs are used to determine which process changes produce the greatest returns on investment in the shortest amount of time. Creating a CS Portal and Storefront topped the list of enabling tools necessary to propel the e-Business mission forward.

Developing e-Business Enabling Components

The Portal, launched in 2000, provides CS employees with job-specific information, company links, reporting tools, and business applications that allow them to do their work more efficiently. The Storefront, operational since April 2001, allows all Intel employees to obtain information on CS products and services, place an order and track its status, and provide feedback to the service-owner.

The Storefront has allowed CS to consolidate domestic help desks so that four operators can easily handle all the calls that come into Intel's Consolidated Action Line. Previous call volumes required as many as ten operators. By driving all non-urgent service requests to the Storefront and consolidating the help desks, CS realized $139,500 in savings in 2001 and will reap annual savings of $287,000 every year thereafter.

"We launched the Storefront with service and product listings for 17 sites and have since expanded its availability to 30 sites" says Prangley. "When the Storefront was launched, it contained only 1,700 service listings. Today, more than 3,000 service listings are available worldwide. More important than the number of sites using the Storefront is the fact that it is available to 93 percent of all Intel employees worldwide."

Refining the Circuit Program

As part of its effort to consolidate offerings and become a 100-percent e-Corporation, Intel integrated the Storefront and other service request tools with Circuit—an intranet site created in 1997 to serve as the primary source of services and news. In this manner, Circuit helps Intel meet its fiduciary responsibilities to its employees. The Circuit home page includes standard features, such as local weather, Intel stock performance, and corporate news.

"When Intel employees log onto Circuit, it automatically knows their location and gives them news specific to that campus," says Prangley. "If they want to go to another campus for information, Circuit has functionality which allows them to change locations."

Fifty transaction tools are available on Circuit, including tools that give employees the ability to obtain paperless pay stubs, complete time cards, manage their stock options, schedule conference rooms, plan business trips, monitor 401(k) changes, offer input regarding health care benefits, select their benefits online, and register for courses.

"Circuit is by far the most often accessed intranet site at Intel with approximately 20 million page views per month," says Prangley.

Circuit's most frequently visited features were determined through Web traffic monitoring software programs. Armed with that information, the Circuit program team included a "Quick Links" area on the Circuit home page to correspond to the ten most often accessed pages.

With the integration of various service request tools, Circuit has also become a one-stop shop, a centralized repository of products and services Intel employees request most often. Those employees no longer need to remember several URLs, nor do they need to know which organization provides the service or product they need. They only need to visit Circuit.

Despite its success in centralizing the location in which products and services can be found, Circuit remains, to some extent, a launching point to other service request tools. Although Intel employees may initiate a service request from Circuit, the process ultimately takes those employees back to other tools (such as the Storefront) where the actual service request is made.

The development of a common service request engine on Circuit for all products and services offered at Intel will mean the eventual elimination of the Storefront. Circuit also plans to assimilate all line-of-business portals at Intel into a single corporate portal.

Learning Along the Way

Intel realizes the importance of building cross-functional project teams with input at the beginning of every new initiative from not only CS employees, but also those in IT, employee services, and the finance department. Having a common vision, keeping the service owners involved, and setting clear expectations for the management team are crucial to the success of e-Business projects.

"When employees are involved up front with a new product, they are more accepting once it is rolled out," says Prangley.

A cross-functional management review committee (MRC) comprised of senior managers steers the e-Business direction by ratifying decisions, establishing priorities, and setting a strategic direction. The MRC strives to eliminate isolated activities and create business synergy by ensuring the sharing of technology solutions among Intel's various IS and IT groups.

The e-Business initiative also takes into account the results of external benchmarking and research data to ensure Intel's actions are in line with industry standards.

Of course, Prangley stresses that "expecting the unexpected" is also a wise idea when launching any new program. Case in point—some of Intel's e-Business initiatives have been impacted several times by virus issues.

Planning for Tomorrow

Intel will continue to streamline and consolidate its service offerings around the globe. Employees will be able to log onto the Circuit from anywhere in the world and see a uniform service request process.

An employee program office is underway with expected completion in 2005. This office will establish standards for the various e-Business arenas in which Intel is involved, including business to employee, business to business, and business to customer. Focused attention on these areas will reduce work redundancies and increase cross-functional synergy.

A cross-functional team is currently evaluating Last Day Office processes and identifying all transactions that occur when an employee leaves Intel. The effort involves making sure the proper steps are taken to reclaim the departing employee's office space, computer equipment, and the employee's badge. Employee requests to relocate from one office to another will also be facilitated with the use of additional workflow technologies and automated business processes.

Deploying data warehousing, knowledge management, and decision-support systems is also in CS's future to help better manage its e-Business initiative, track information, and improve its business processes.

Despite the uncertainty of the economy over the past two years, Intel has kept its focus on e-Business. The project investments are already starting to pay off with enhanced productivity and more simplified business processes, but the work is far from over.

"We've been doing this for two years, but it feels like we've just begun," says Prangley. "We still have a lot of work to do."

By Tracy Carbasho

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