he thousands of options and configurations can be overwhelming when doing a simple Google search of a corporate intranet portal, especially if you don’t have a solid understanding of the subject. Options range from free, open-source intranet solutions to expensive custom-developed solutions to meet your organization’s specific needs.
Whether you’re looking for a simple communication and collaboration portal or an Corporate Intranet Portal with extensive database, file storage and project management capabilities; there are many factors to consider.
However, any business, big or small, broad or niche, can benefit from the simplified processes, standardized naming conventions, version control, collaboration, communication and file storage that all these intranet solutions claim to offer.
Considering the following factors, you should be able to clearly understand the specific needs of your business. This will bring you one step closer to choosing the perfect intranet solution.
What is your goal?
First things first; set your business goals. When researching your options, it can be very helpful to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your corporate intranet portal. If anything, it’s easier to cross out options that don’t work against your goals in the initial stages of your research.
Do you want to increase and/or optimize collaboration within your organization? Do you want to use your intranet as your primary means of communication? How will this affect existing internal business processes?
These are important questions to answer before you go any further, as they should be at the heart of your first intranet solution implementation.
Who are the end users of the intranet?
One of the most important questions to ask when choosing an employee intranet solution is: Who will use it?
Are your average end users already experiencing platforms like social media? Are they already using computer software? Are they accustomed to change and are they adapting quickly?
Today, many standard intranet platforms offer a style that looks and feels very similar to existing products such as operating systems and social media platforms. As a result, end users will find the platform very intuitive to use. After all, most of them are used to several social media platforms.
Generally speaking, it is easier to leverage this existing familiarity than to teach an entirely new product from scratch.
Change is scary; providing an engaging user experience, and providing user training when necessary, will go a long way in helping users adopt the new portal.
Pay special attention to this aspect when doing research; it will pay off.
Is the intranet integrated with existing processes and software?
Unless you’re starting a brand new business, chances are your business already uses a variety of software and already has multiple internal business processes.
It is important to consider the location of the Employee Intranet Solution within the existing structure.
Employee intranet solutions should replace or integrate seamlessly with existing software. If not, it first implements the Intranet.
In addition, employee intranet solutions should make internal business processes more efficient, not complicated.
In the end, the ideal is to use the intranet as much as possible and no other applications.
Intranet platforms are designed to make your business run more efficiently, not the other way around.
