Things to do Before Selecting an Intranet Solution

Your intranet is an important investment and asset of your organization. It lays the much-needed foundation for internal communication, collaboration, innovation, information sharing, and growth of the company. This makes it important to establish clear intranet objectives and requirements. You have to keep your present and future goals in mind.    

Intranet Objectives For Stakeholders 

Stakeholders are the individuals who will use your cloud-based intranet software. Intranet stakeholders don’t just include the employees working within the organization but also include employees working remotely. 

So, before you implement your intranet and choose the best company intranet software, spend time with these stakeholders and discuss their pain points. You are using cloud-based intranet software to solve business problems your employees are facing. So, the software must meet their everyday needs. There are no benefits if you blindly adopt this technology.

Intranet Context Requirements

In addition to getting opinions from stakeholders, you need to break down these specific intranet solution requirements. Paying attention to detail will help in choosing the most appropriate cloud-based intranet software. Ask yourself the following questions:

a). Who will use the intranet?

b). Why do they need an intranet?

c). What can they achieve with the intranet?

These questions form the context requirements. This allows you to drill down to the specifics. When your intranet requirements are clear, vendors can also recommend to you the best intranet solution.   

One-on-one Interviews 

If you want to get more informed opinions for the decision-making process then interview as many stakeholders as possible. Write down your intranet requirements.  

Most of the organizations have the following intranet objectives and requirements: 

1. Improving content management.

2. Improving information. 

3. Improving documentation.

4. Improving knowledge management. 

5. Improving employee engagement. 

6. Sharing important company information. 

7. Ensuring remote accessibility on different devices.

8. Reducing time spent in email communication. 

9. Easier remote employee management.

10. Fixing slow speeds, broken search, and other technical issues. 

11. Managing meetings, events, calendars, and important dates.

12. Team and project collaboration. 

13. Task management. 

Assembling a Team 

The selection of an intranet solution is an important decision and one individual cannot make this decision. It requires a team to make this decision. And should be a small & efficient team that is committed to your intranet requirements and objectives. It knows how to get things done. To select this team, you need to determine responsibilities and accountability for team members. Who is to be consulted before making the final decision? Who is to be informed after making a decision? 

Business Constraints 

Scope, cost, and schedule are the three cardinal factors constraining every business. One factor influences other factors. To reduce the cost, you have to sacrifice on the requirements or scope.

Changes in the schedule always influence both the cost and scope. Similarly, changes in the scope affect both the schedule and cost.

There can be some other constraints as well, such as language and geography. If you have a budget and a schedule, it is critical to determine your needs. These constraints influence decision making, especially in small and medium-sized organizations. 

Buy or Build 

Building an intranet solution makes sense only in bigger companies as it requires a huge amount of time and resources. The cost is also very high. This is the reason why most small and medium-sized companies purchase from an intranet software provider.

Depending on their requirements and constraints, some companies choose a one-size-fits-all intranet solution and some choose a customization and flexible intranet solution. 

Cloud or Self-hosted 

The majority of small and medium-sized companies use cloud-based intranet software. The maintenance cost and requirements for cloud-based intranet software are low. You don’t need to make a huge investment to update your intranet solution according to your requirements. All you have to do is to update your plan. Go for a self-hosted solution if you want complete control.