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How To Guide

Revitalizing Intranets Reduces Support Costs

Executive Summary:

This report has been designed to provide practical advice for revitalizing
and re-launching your corporate Intranet.

Read this brief 8-page report to learn:

 What is an Intranet?
 What are the Business Benefits?
 Common Content by Department
 Intranet Revitalization Best Practices

Read this report to learn how to audit the usage of your Intranet, assess
content & assign ownership, and re-launch your Intranet to save money
on support & administrative costs.

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Table of Contents Page

What is an Intranet? 3

What are the Business Benefits? 3

Common Content by Department 4

Intranet Revitalization Best Practices 6

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What is an Intranet?

An Intranet, or ‘portal’, is similar to an Internet website except that it is


restricted to users within an organization. (Intranets that extend outside
the company to partners or customers are called Extranets). Intranets
use web servers to distribute information, and users view content with
their Internet browser or by downloading documents.

Many organizations select Intranets to share information among


employees since they can be built and maintained more cost-effectively
than other types of private networks or enterprise content management
& collaboration systems.

What are the Business Benefits?

Although many organizations have implemented an Intranet, most


corporate Intranets in mid-sized companies are not well organized, user-
friendly, or contain relevant content that is current and being
maintained by a designated content owner.

These challenges aside, Intranets can provide many business benefits


including, but not limited to, the following five areas:

1. Reduced Support Costs - providing employees with a ‘self-


service’ resource to find answers to their questions can
drastically reduce inter-office support calls, provided that
employees actually use the Intranet and know its contents.

2. Minimized Administrative Costs - posting standardized


business processes, checklists, templates, and other materials
such as proposals, contracts, or other commonly used
documents, will increase the efficiency of your operation and
provide a mechanism for version-control.

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3. Brand Consistency - by maintaining documents at the Intranet


level, rather than having staff save them to their desktop,
Marketers have more control over their corporate brand & image,
reducing the risk of out-of-date materials being used in the field.
Monitoring download activity is a sound method to ensure that
your employees are in the habit of using the Intranet instead of a
desktop folder.

4. Improved Remote Access - many employees would do work


outside the office if they had access to the information and tools
they need to be productive. As many intranets are internally
hosted they can be unreliable or slow to load, especially if remote
workers do not have a fast Internet connection. Adopting a
hosted solution can be very cost-effective, increase availability,
and provide usage analytics.

5. Employee Self-Service - not only do successful Intranets


reduce helpdesk & support calls, but they also provide a faster
method for employees to get answers to their questions. This can
mitigate process bottlenecks for busy helpdesks, and provide a
better experience for an end-user, provided the Intranet is easy
to navigate.

Common Content by Department

All corporate departments have information that needs to be provided to


employees. Following is a list of common Intranet contents made
available by departments. This list is not exhaustive but was generated
to stimulate further thinking about what content your organization would
like to provide.

Finance & Accounting

 Payroll & Compensation Information


 Accounts Receivable/Payable & Budget Reports
 Expense Reimbursement Policies & Procedures
 Cost/Benefit, Business Case, or ROI templates
 Approval Processes for Capital Expenditures

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Human Resources

 401K and Employee Benefits Information


 Corporate Policies, Procedures, & Manuals
 Performance Reviews & Development Plans
 New Employee Orientation & Handbooks
 Training & Corporate Development Materials

Marketing

 Corporate Logos & Marketing Collateral


 Sales Presentations, Proposals, & Scripts
 Tradeshow Checklists & ROI Calculators
 Press Releases & Investor Relations Info
 Sponsorship Policies & Sustainability Reports

Sales & Customer Service

 Service Level Agreements


 Standard Contracts & Agreements
 Customer Service & Sales Process Diagrams
 Funnel Reports & Sales Forecasts
 Client Lists, Testimonials, and Sales Tools

Information Technology

 Helpdesk Frequently Asked Questions


 I/T Policies & Procedures
 Disaster Recovery Plans
 I/T Project Request Forms
 Strategic Information Technology Plans

Operations

 Administration Processes
 Support for Creating New Processes
 Lean Manufacturing, ISO or Six Sigma info
 Purchasing Policies & Supply Chain Management
 Process Management Frameworks & Standards

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Intranet Revitalization Best Practices

1. Conduct an Intranet Usage Survey - use our Intranet Usage


Survey template to identify which employees are actually using
the Intranet, how they using it, and to document areas for it to
be improved by department. This survey can be used to
benchmark your current situation and used again later to
demonstrate a measurable improvement and return on
investment for your revitalization project.

2. Develop a Project Plan - use our Project Charter to


document goals, objectives, timelines, and other pertinent
Intranet Revitalization Project information for senior
management to assess at a high level. Build a Business Case if
required to justify any expenditures.

3. Evaluate Vendor Solutions - if you are not already committed


to an Intranet platform, assess 3-5 vendors to learn more about
your options. Intranet vendors generally fall into three
categories: Wiki providers (open-source and free), hosted portal
solutions such as iCentera (starting at ~$500/month), or
Enterprise Content Management & Collaboration solutions such
as Microsoft Sharepoint (up to $500,000+).

4. Engage the I/T Department - discuss requirements with your


I/T Director and determine if your current solution will meet your
needs. If you require a new system, schedule the selection
process and customization project according to your project
timelines and availability of I/T resources.

5. Audit Content Ownership - analyze your current intranet


content to determine who the content owners are, or if there is a
lack of ownership for any materials. Determine who should own
each type of content, and create a content publishing & approval
process. Many portal systems have inherent content publishing
functionality built-in to control workflows and approvals, so
ensure this requirement is on your list.

6. Identify User Needs - interview each department leader to


understand their Top 5 most common support call questions. Use
our Intranet FAQ Worksheet to document these questions,
and determine the overall Top 10 most frequently asked
questions (FAQ).
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List the Top 10 FAQ’s on the Intranet homepage to direct users


quickly to their area of interest, and list the Top 5 FAQ’s on the
main page for each department to facilitate navigation.

7. Assess Intranet Content - determine if your content is up-to-


date, accurate, relevant, or missing. Document what needs to be
updated, created, refined, or removed from the Intranet and
assign these tasks to the content owner.

8. Organize Intranet Content - create a hierarchy, which is a


table of contents or site map, to organize your intranet content.
Speak to your web developer about site maps as they have most
likely built one for your corporate website and can provide
guidance with this task. Make this hierarchy available on the
homepage for quick and easy navigation to the pages that users
require. Task each content owner with updating their section of
the Intranet to prepare for the re-launch.

9. Design the Homepage - be sure to include a ‘Search’ function,


Top FAQs, site map, and links to each department’s section of
the Intranet. You may wish to include a section containing
company news, highlight project status reports, or provide other
content that will keep users coming back to the Intranet. Be sure
to change elements of your homepage to keep it fresh and
interesting.

10. Re-Launch the Intranet - send out an email communication


regarding the re-launch of your Intranet to all employees. Attach
a Project Request Form and indicate who the content owners
are for each department to ensure your employees know where
to turn when they need a new resource developed.

11. Conduct User Training - once your content is uploaded and you
are ready to re-launch your Intranet, schedule a meeting with
each department to provide user training. To ensure adoption, it
is critical that your users are fully aware of the contents on the
Intranet and that they are comfortable using the system.

12. Send Monthly Reminders - deliver a monthly email to all


employees highlighting new content, common uses, or tips &
tricks to reinforce adoption rates and increase ROI. You need to
maintain mindshare for at least the first 3 months to ensure
project success. If you have analytics, monitor download activity
and target users who have never logged in, or login very rarely.

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13. Re-Survey Intranet Usage - use our Intranet Usage Survey


again three months after the re-launch to measure
improvements to usage and stimulate thinking for new content
requests.

14. Conduct a Post-Mortem - use our Post-Project Evaluation


template to determine project success and document any lessons
learned for future initiatives.

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