9 - 15 August 2001

Moving towards a paperless office

by Ivan Brincat

Bank of Valletta are moving closer to a paperless office following the development of an intranet that connects all the bank’s 1,200 staff.
Known as GENIE (General Employee Network for Information Exchange) the intranet has proved to be a success and very popular among the staff. In fact, the number of clicks on the intranet’s pages increased from just over 66,000 in April this year to 296,000 in July.
The increase registered between June and July was significant with 120,000 hits in June. This means that hits have more than doubled in one month.
The number of visits – the number of times people log onto the intranet and carry out a browsing session – has also increased from under 12,000 in April 2001 to around 27,500 in July 2001.
Victor Denaro, executive head Information Technology Services Division told The Malta Business Weekly that the dissemination of information is now passed through the intranet. “It has been a conscious decision of BOV to use GENIE as its main communication platform.”
“All bank circulars are posted there so staff can view them on line without the need to use papers. In July, a business decision was taken to make the intranet the standard communication tool for BOV.”
An intranet is a network of computers that can share information of any type within an organisation using standard internet technology. It uses internet-based technologies to facilitate communication and access to information and serves as the corporate ‘information network’.
Mr Denaro said the bank had started planning its network infrastructure four years ago.
“All branches and departments, both locally and internationally, have been linked through a fibre-optic network called BOVNET. There are three centres as backbones for the network which then provide links to branches and ATMs.”
Mr Denaro said the investment was such that the bank did not want to use this network just for transaction processing but for other
services such as GENIE which has been operational for two years. “We are the proud owners of this dyna-mic intranet developed by a small team of bank employees. We believe we are ahead in this sector within the financial services sector,” he said.
He added that a business decision was taken recently to use GENIE as a way of moving closer to a paperless office. “It virtually means the elimination of costs of printing, distribution and updating,” Mr Denaro said.
All the personal computers at the bank are now intranet enabled so any bank employee has access to the intranet at any time of the day. Its storage capacities and archives also ensure that an employee can look at old reports or search for an old circular or collective agreement.
Subsidiaries of BOV, such as Valletta Fund Management and BOVSL are also connected to the intranet and this could be the first step towards the development of an extranet, whereby particular clients, for example, could be allowed onto this shared network.
Mr Denaro said this approach is giving rise to information sharing and was a step towards knowledge management. “Genie will be the place where the management of the bank’s intelligence and knowledge preservation will happen. The intranet enables the bank to create virtual teams which share information in secure pages without leaving their desks.”
The BOV intranet hosts various web-sites of various departments such as Business Development, Business Intelligence, Head of Sales, Human Resources Development Unit, Marketing, Personnel, Purchasing, Quality, Risk Monitoring and Strategic Planning Unit.
It also has circulars, a What’s New section, newsletter, downloads of latest software, knowledge management papers, speeches, classifieds and exchange rates, report distribution, data warehousing, and decision support querying facility.
The intranet was conceived by Joseph Agius and Herbert Zarb and developed and is maintained by Madeleine Borg Muscat and Keith Harmsworth with contributions from various BOV staff members.