What is an intranet?

First of all, let’s look at what an intranet is. An intranet is a Web site that can be viewed only by an organization’s employees, and not by the general public. An extranet is similarly limited in audience, sometimes it is viewed only by an organization and its suppliers or clients. If your employees do not familiarize themselves with your intranet site, then it is quite possible that it isn’t very effective.

Okay then, how does it differ from an Internet Web site? From a technology perspective, there is no difference. Intranet and Internet sites both use the same media, Web programming and server technology. Where they differ is in their respective goals and the resulting design requirements.

Very often an Internet site’s goals may be to:

• attract and develop new customers;
• sell products or services;
• inform the general public;
• inform shareholders.

In sum, an Internet site’s main focus should be to support an organization’s marketing and communications goals. However, too often an Internet Web site is created for the reason that “we need a Web site because everyone has one,” rather than using it as an effective tool. This is a topic for another discussion.

So how does an intranet differ?

First of all, because the audience is employees instead of potential customers. With an intranet, you are not trying to sell anything and don’t need to impress anyone. Instead, the intranet plays primarily a corporate communications’ role with two main goals:

• to keep employees informed of important information that is deemed necessary for them to know;
• to provide information that employees feel is necessary to know.

These two goals may seem identical, but in fact the first goal often represents what management and the Webmaster think is important, while the second is what individual employees think is important. Quite often, intranets only follow the first goal, and the structure of the site resembles the organization’s organizational chart. The result is that employees may not find the information they are looking for because it isn’t there, or it isn’t presented in such a way that they can find it easily. For instance, if an employee is looking for a form, should he look on the Finance page or the Human Resources page?

Common intranet Problems

Now that we know what an intranet is supposed to do, how do we know whether it is fulfilling its role? Here are few symptoms of an intranet that is not succeeding:

• Other information channels are faster: If you can find information elsewhere faster, there is obviously a problem. For instance, if you can get someone’s phone number faster by consulting a paper directory. Once employees realize that info is too hard to find in your intranet (they will come to this conclusion rather quickly), they will rely on other sources making the intranet futile as a result;
• Intranet information is not up-to-date: Because intranets compete with other information channels, they must be extremely timely. Once employees realize that information on the intranet is not timely and not reliable, they will abandon it. Once again, you are then wasting your time maintaining an intranet;
• Too many wide distribution list e-mails: If your organization is relying on e-mails sent to everyone in order to keep employees informed, you are not using your intranet effectively;
• Too much reliance on paper: Yes, most offices have more paper than ever before and it’s usually hoarded into each employee’s cubicle. This is very wasteful;
• Document version control problems: Is this the right form? Is this the final version of this report? If you hear this regularly, maybe a more effective use of the intranet is in order;
• Inefficient administrative procedures: Are you reliant on paper for documenting administrative activities? Does your organization have different systems that don’t communicate with each other? A well-designed Web application on the intranet could automate many paper-based administrative activities and represents a cost-effective way of providing access for all desktops.

These are just some of the problems we have encountered when evaluating the effectiveness of intranet sites.

Documédia and intranets

Documédia has extensive experience in the development of intranet sites. We can ensure that your organization has an effective intranet site that supports your organizational goals and is maintained in a timely and cost-effective manner. We can assist you with designing the site architecture, graphic design, building the site, developing Web applications and even training your staff to maintain the site in-house.
>> more information about our services

---