9. Intranets have big productivity potential

Intranets deliver – and are increasingly doing so with in-house social media features. Those were among the messages from the first Intranet Global Forum.

Another key take-away was the critical role of intranet governance. Repeatedly, the G-word cropped up in case studies, presentations on best practice and discussion sessions. Who does what, who posts content and (most critically) how it is archived and removed are vital questions for successful intranets.

The forum brought together developers, intranet managers and agencies from around the world for a two-day event in New York in November. Prescient Digital, the Canadian consultancy that organised the forum, declared itself pleased with the event and said that it may become an annual one.

Prescient CEO Toby Ward presented results from a survey of over 1,400 intranets which found:

• 61% had one or more web 2.0 tools, with blogs and discussions the most popular
• The most common platform was a portal such as SharePoint (34%), followed by content management systems (27%) and custom-built systems (20%)
• Over half (55%) had social media tools for most staff.

Among the many other findings, he emphasised the limited satisfaction levels reported, with just 30% of intranets seen as good or very good and the remainder satisfactory or poor. Noting the low levels of spending reported, he said that despite its potential for saving cost and boosting productivity the intranet was often the very poor relation of the corporate website.

“It may be that you get what you pay for” (in terms of satisfaction), he said.

Case studies

The forum heard detailed case study presentations on large-scale intranet projects that had delivered very substantial gains.

Cisco Systems invested heavily in its intranet to support its strategic corporate goals of accelerating time to market and faster revenue generation. Social profiles, blogs, wikis and dynamic communities were part of the intranet roll-out to its 50,000 staff world-wide.

Among the benefits cited were:

• Time to market halved to 12 months
• Email volume reduced by 38%
• A 12% productivity gain per employee.

PepsiCo does business in 200 countries, marketing hundreds of food and beverage brands, and 145,000 employees use its intranet. Its redeveloped intranet, launched in December 2010, relies heavily on video content and social features. Its home page has been viewed 49 million times this year.

IBM relies on its intranet to communicate with its 400,000 staff, and it also has one of the world’s most sophisticated and extensive websites. Attendees were fascinated to hear Peter J. Ceplenski of IBM describe the “Galactic Internet Presence Redesign” that will see it converge its intranet and internet sites. Poor relation or not, many companies expect big returns from intranet investments.

Top tips for an intranet that works

1. Remember that a successful intranet is a process, not a project
2. Set out a mission statement, objectives and targets
3. Understand staff and business needs fully
4. Involve staff in design work and test drafts with them
5. Keep it simple and focus on navigation and structure
6. Make it fast, easy and helpful to staff in their daily tasks
7. Create an effective, interesting home page
8. Good change management will drive use and satisfaction
9. Get visible senior management support
10. Governance, governance, governance

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