A corporate intranet is a private network which is available only to a company’s employees. It is a secure site that requires a user ID and password to access.
A company intranet portal is a central location where you can easily find the information, people, and tools you need to get things done. It provides employees with a platform where they can engage, be up-to-date with the latest company information, share their ideas, and collectively contribute to the company’s goals.
For deciding whether or not to implement/revamp the intranet ask yourself the following questions.
After addressing these questions, if either of the answers is yes then you are in the need of a corporate intranet. Deploy an apt intranet solution for enjoying the benefits - improved internal communications, organization-wide collaboration and engagement, effective document and knowledge management, workflow creations, etc.
Collaboration is key for every company. Communicating, sharing and working together with colleagues on documents, plans and tasks is very important for boosting team success and productivity. A company intranet software allows you to organize information by departments, teams and projects, streamline activities by creating workflows and automating manual processes. Such business intranet software provides employees with productivity tools to work smarter.
Setting up of intranet revolves around the benefits your organization plans to harness from it. Understand your needs and create an engaging, coherent, and secure intranet that offers the best benefits. Follow the 7 step process discussed below for quick intranet setup.
Step #1 - Strategize for change and adoption: Before choosing any intranet ensure that the senior management and key stakeholders buy-in your proposal. Eventually, build a team of internal stakeholders for supervising the solution selection process.
Step #2 - Define intranet’s objectives: Intranet solutions notch up multiple company goals and pre-determine your motives for intranet. As it will guide your requirement and selection of features/technology
Step #3 - Explore user preferences: Your employees are going to use the intranet and it’s pivotal to understand what they need from it . Use their inputs and feedbacks to chalk out the intranet structure, governance, etc.
Step #4 - Select the intranet solution: With your stakeholder teams and guiding questions and requirements, review your vendors and select an appropriate solution for your organization.
Step #5 - Configure the platform: Whether you pick a ready-to-go solution or customize it, you will have to configure it to meet your requirements. Define the usability structure and create a user-friendly platform.
Step #6 - Develop the solution: Complete the development of the solution by inserting the appropriate content and give it an identity. Make sure you keep updating the same to make it engaging and dynamic.
Step #7 - Pilot test, Roll Out, and Measure: Launch the solution in the organization, after running a pilot test and making desired alterations. Assign responsibilities for handling policies, content creation & approval, governance, etc. Measure the metrics of success, engagement levels, analytics, etc. and address changes you need to make it a longed-for staple of the organization.
There are a few options when it comes to creating a corporate intranet to be used within an organization. If you are a SharePoint shop, you already have the tools to create your own intranet. You can use readily available SharePoint templates and customize them to fit your needs or employ an external company to build your company intranet software from scratch. Both these options are time-consuming and expensive.
The other option is to subscribe to a ready-to-go corporate intranet solution. Such solutions are easy to use, don’t require any special skills or IT resources to setup and maintain, are quick to setup (within days), and are cost effective. The application of intranet in businesses satisfies 80%-90% of your needs, out-of-the-box, and additionally you get a quick ROI with minimal investment and with minimal support and resources needed as you essentially get cost-free technology and feature updates.
Provide your employees with a customized employee intranet software to make work simple and effective. By using intranet in business communication, accessing important company news, collaborating on projects and documents with off-shore teams, sharing information & ideas, and getting approvals, becomes fast secure, and easy BizPortals 365 offers all this and more!
BizPortals 365 is a ready-to-go intranet system which offers lots of pre-configured sites and modules so you can instantly get going with connecting, managing and organizing critical areas of your business.