These days, most corporations have their own intranet, which is somewhat like the internet except for the fact that it’s only accessible to those within the company. However, Intranets are not just useful for large enterprises, SMEs can benefit from them hugely too.
An intranet means that internal communications within a company are simplified substantially and make for more success in terms of growth, as productivity increases. It’s basically an internal database which every employee can access, with different permissions for various staff.
For example, it’s doubtful that you want junior office staff to be able to access all of your financial reports and forecasts for the year, so these are just given permissions to access certain areas of the intranet which is relevant to their job.
According to Microsoft: “In order for a company to succeed, all players must understand its goals. Neither long-term nor short-term goals should be confined to upper management meetings. It’s Business 101. Everyone needs to be working toward common goals”.
By building an intranet, employees and bosses alike can share information across the board; not only is it easier to set up and share appointments and information, but as a part of an intranet, employees can communicate better, leading to less confusion following meetings, when everyone has to take notes and remember everything afterwards.
Not only that but intranets have evolved dramatically over the past decade as CMS and social are added and the introduction of cloud computing often means that an intranet can be accessed from anywhere. This is ideal in these days of BYOD and telecommuting, as it makes for a more flexible workforce and again, ups productivity
That’s even before we go into the benefits presented by ROI, which can be substantial, depending on what model you use and the size of your business.
Developing an Intranet
It’s a good idea to carry out sound planning before implementing an Intranet; whilst they can and will benefit a business of any size, needs vary and so it’s worth investing primarily in a decent consultancy firm. These will be able to carry out an audit of your company and recommend what will benefit your business the most.
A modern intranet should be well organized and easy for users to navigate, especially if you don’t want to spend a fortune training your staff; again, this is something that can be discussed with a consultant.
A well planned business infrastructure is much more likely to be a successful one and one that your company can see clear benefits from. The ability to share internal information across the whole of your staff often does away with the need to constantly send internal memos and emails.
Discussion boards on an intranet can also help staff to come up with collaborative ideas before meetings or when working on a project, cutting down the time needed for physical meetings as everyone is aware of their position on a project.
Read More (Source: Kerry, elcomcms.com)
