Jagran Prakashan Increases Staff Productivity by 40%
- by Michael Snow
Jagran Prakashan Increases Staff Productivity by 40%, Launches New IT
Projects up to 4x Faster, Enables Mobile Service, and Improves Business
Agility
Oracle Customer: JPL
Location: Uttar Pradesh, India
Industry: Media and Entertainment
Employees: 10,000
Annual Revenue: $100 to $500 Million
Jagran Prakashan Ltd. (JPL) is one of India's premier
media and communications groups with interests spanning print,
advertising, event management, and mobile services for weather, cricket
scores, and educational activities. It is a major media enterprise, with
300 locations across 15 states. Its impressive stable of print
publications includes Dainik Jagran, the world’s most widely read daily
newspaper––with a readership of over 55 million––the country’s leading
afternoon dailies, and a range of popular local, bilingual, and English
language newspapers. JPL was using multiple systems to manage
its business processes. Users were resistant to using multiple passwords
for various applications, preferring to continue their less efficient,
legacy work practices. In addition, there was no single
repository for sharing documents across the organization, such as
company announcements or project documents. The company relied on e-mail
to disseminate up-to-date company information, often missing employees.
It was also time-consuming and difficult for managers to track the
status of ongoing assignments or projects because collaboration and
document sharing was inefficient and ineffective.With diverse
businesses and many geographic locations, JPL needed to implement a
centralized and user-friendly enterprise portal to improve document
sharing and collaboration and increase business agility. The company
implemented Oracle WebCenter Portal
to create a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service enterprise
portal to improve the user experience and increase operating efficiency.
It improved staff productivity by 40%, accelerated new IT projects by
up to 4x, boosted staff morale, and increased business agility.
Increases Staff Productivity by 40%, Launches New Products up to 2x Faster
A word from JPL
"With Oracle WebCenter
Portal, we gained a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service
enterprise portal that provided an exceptional user experience and
enabled us to engage employees in a collaborative environment. It
increased IT staff productivity by 40%, delivered new projects up to 4x
faster, and enabled mobile service to improve our business agility.”
Sarbani Bhatia, Vice President IT,
Jagran Prakashahn Ltd
Before implementing Oracle WebCenter Portal, JPL stored project-critical information, such as page planning of daily newspaper editions and the launch of new editions or supplements on individual laptops or in the e-mail system. Collaboration between colleagues was limited to physical meetings, telephone discussions, and e-mail. It was difficult to trace and recover important project documents when a staff member resigned, which represented a significant risk to business continuity. Employees were also averse to multiple passwords and resisted using the systems, affecting staff productivity.
With
Oracle WebCenter Portal, JPL created a dynamic, secure, and intuitive
self-service enterprise portal with business activity streams. The
portal allowed users to navigate, discover, and access information, such
as advertising rates, requisition approvals, ad-hoc queries, and
employee surveys from a single entry point with a single password.
Managers can also upload important documents, such as new pricing for
advertisers or newspaper distributors, and share them through the
information and instruction section in the portal. In addition, managers
can now easily track and review timelines for projects online rather
than gathering information from meetings and e-mails. The company gained
the ability to centrally manage information, ensured business
continuity, and improved staff productivity by 40%.“In the media
industry, news has a very short shelf life, so speed is crucial.
Information delayed is like information lost,” said Sarbani Bhatia, vice
president IT, Jagran Prakashahn Ltd. “Thanks to Oracle WebCenter
Portal’s contextual collaboration tools, we can provide and share
feedback for new project launches, such as career or education
supplements, up to 2x faster through discussion forums or knowledge
groups. Tasks that previously required four months, we now complete in
one month.”In addition, the company can broadcast announcements,
flash employee birthdays, and promote important events through the
message section on the webpage, instead of using the e-mail system. The
company can also conduct opinion polls to gauge employee response to
organizational issues and improve management decision-making.“With
over 10,000 employees across 300 locations, it is critical for
management to hear the voice of employees and develop a cohesive
organizational culture. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables employees to
engage with business processes and systems in a collaborative
environment, providing users with an exceptional experience,” Bhatia
said.
Enables Mobility Access and Increases Business Agility
Newspaper advertisements generate the majority of JPL’s revenue. With
most sales staff on the move, the company needed to ensure timely
approval of print advertisement discounts for specific clients and meet
tight publication deadlines. By integrating Oracle WebCenter
Portal seamlessly with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and
other applications, such as the organizational mass mailing system,
business intelligence, and management information system, JPL embedded
its approval workflow processes into the enterprise portal and provided
users with an integrated and intuitive interface. About 30% of JPL’s
sales staff members now have tablets and receive advertising discount
approval from managers while in the field and no longer need to return
to the office, which has significantly improved efficiency and increased
business agility.“Application mobility was critical for sales
representatives in the field to meet stringent auditing requirements for
online accountability, particularly for our newspaper advertising
business. Staff member satisfaction has improved significantly now that
the sales team can use tablets to access the portal––a capability we
will extend to smart phones in the second stage of the implementation,”
Bhatia said.
Accelerates Application Development by up to 4x and Cuts Costs by up to 60%
With Oracle WebCenter Portal, users can easily create, modify, and
upload information to their personalized webpages without IT assistance.
By seamlessly integrating Oracle WebCenter Portal with the payroll
database, managers can decide which members of their team can access the
page and with whom they will share information, a decision based on
role or geographical location. A sales representative selling
advertising space for a local language daily newspaper, for example, can
upload an updated advertising rate relevant only to that particular
publication. Users can also easily adapt to the new platform, thanks to
its intuitive design and look, reducing the need for training and
lowering resistance to using the system.Using Oracle WebCenter
Portal’s out-of-the-box reusable components, such as portal pages and
templates, provided JPL’s developers with a comprehensive and flexible
user experience platform and increased the speed of application
development. In less than five months, JPL developed more than 55
workflows. The IT team accelerated deployment of new applications by up
to 4x, as they do not need to install them on individual machines now
that they have a web-based environment. “Previously, we would
have spent a whole day deploying a new application for each department
or location. With a browser-based environment, we have cut costs by up
to 60% by reducing deployment time to zero, because our IT team can roll
out a new application from a single point, thanks to Oracle WebCenter
Portal,” Bhatia said.
Challenges
Provide a dynamic, secure, and intuitive
self-service enterprise portal to improve staff productivity and ensure
business continuity
Enable seamless integration with multiple
enterprise applications to improve workflow efficiency—including
approval of print advertisement discounts—and increase business agility
Improve engagement with employees and enable collaboration to enhance management decision-making
Accelerate time-to-market for new services, such as new advertising programs
Solutions
Oracle Product and ServicesOracle WebCenter Portal 11g
Increased staff productivity by 40% and enhanced
user satisfaction by enabling employees to easily navigate, discover,
and access information from a single, self-service enterprise portal
without IT assistance
Launched new products, such as career or education
supplements, up to 2x faster by enabling peer collaboration and
incorporating feedback generated through discussion forums, thanks to
Oracle WebCenter Portal’s out-of-the-box collaboration tools
Accelerated application development up to 4x by
enabling developers to optimize reusable components for managing and
deploying new applications in a browser-based environment rather than
spending one day to install applications for each department, cutting
costs by up to 60%
Ensured business continuity by enabling managers
to easily track and review project timelines online rather than storing
important documents on individual laptops or relying on the e-mail
system
Increased business agility and operational
efficiency by seamlessly integrating with the in-house, ERP system and
embedding business processes into a single portal
Boosted company revenue by enabling sales team
members to submit print-advertising discount requests through mobile
devices instead of waiting to return to office, ensuring timely approval
from managers to meet tight publication deadlines
Improved management decision-making by enabling
employees to easily share and access feedback through opinion polls or
forums, boosting staff morale
Introduced the single sign-on capability and
enhanced security by enabling managers to decide access level for staff
members based on role or geographical location
Reduced the need for staff training and minimized
user resistance to systems by providing a dynamic and intuitive user
experience
Why Oracle
JPL did not consider other products because the
company was already using Oracle Database, Enterprise Edition with Real
Application Clusters and had a positive experience with Oracle. JPL
chose Oracle WebCenter Portal to ensure no compatibility issues for
integration with its existing Oracle products and to take advantage of
the experience and support of a reputable vendor to ensure business
continuity. “We chose Oracle because we knew we could rely on
its support and experience. In addition, Oracle WebCenter Portal’s
speed, agility, and mobile access features were a perfect fit for our
business requirements,” Bhatia said.
Implementation Process
JPL launched the enterprise portal to 500 users in
the first phase of the project, and plans to extend this to 2,000 users
when the portal is fully launched. Oracle partner PricewaterhouseCoopers
used Oracle Application Development Framework for the intial set-up,
user training and to develop and design sample workflows. JPL’s internal
IT staff then took charge of the implementation, bringing it to
completion on budget.
Partner
Oracle PartnerPricewaterhouseCoopers (India)
