In many ways, websites and intranets are like telephone systems – they assist us in accomplishing mission-critical work all the time but their true value is rarely measured.

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Most people and organizations inherently know and understand the value of the telephone and don’t require a detailed ROI balance sheet before buying a phone. Like the telephone, most organizations inherently understand the value of an intranet, but don’t truly measure its value beyond HITS.

Failure to measure your intranet’s performance above and beyond simple analytics (e.g. HITS and page views) is a failure of responsibility (particularly in this economy where most organizations are looking cut costs wherever they find them).

Here are five noteworthy key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to adopt:

1. Sales – if you’re intranet is not helping your organization increase sales, then you’re missing out. It’s far too easy to accomplish with a little planning and execution. Among the benefits:

• Provide the sales team with better information, more efficiently

• Solicit and reward employee leads & referrals

Additional reading:

Intranet Insider World Tour: Sodexho USA

2. User satisfaction – more important than what employees are reading, and how often / much, is their satisfaction with the intranet. How happy are they? In particular, user satisfaction with:

• Design

• Content

• Navigation

• Tools

• Search

Among the satisfaction metrics BT tracks on their intranet (see Satisfied BT Intranet users « Mark Morrell):

• 83% satisfied with the intranet (down 3%)

• 42% extremely/very satisfied with the intranet (down 3%)

• 6% are dissatisfied with the intranet (up 2%)

• 79% satisfied with BT Homepage (new design) the corporate intranet portal (down 3%)

• 43% extremely/very satisfied the BT Homepage (down 5%)

• 3% dissatisfied with BT Homepage (no change)

   

3. Productivity – the intranet can significantly boost employee productivity and their ability to find information and tools to complete their work. Among the productivity metrics that Microsoft, IBM and BT track:

• 33% of Microsoft employee survey participants (33%) agree completely that the Microsoft intranet (MSWeb) saves them time

• 27% agree completely that MSWeb has helped to improve their productivity (8 or 9 on a nine-point scale)

• 80% IBM employees visit w3 (the intranet) at least once per day

• 68% view the intranet as crucial to their jobs

• 52% are more satisfied to be an IBM employee because of information obtained on w3

• 48% agree the BT Intranet improves everyday working life

• 57% agree the BT Intranet saves me time in my working day

• 59% agree the BT Intranet helps me to be more efficient in my job

Additional reading:

Intranet 2.0 case study: BT

Leading intranet case study: IBM’s W3

4. Stakeholder satisfaction – a far more critical and discerning audience are those managers and executives (stakeholders) that have a hand in or ownership of the intranet. Our intranet consultants (Prescient Digital Media) have solicited and surveyed stakeholders for their opinions and ratings of the for more than 100 intranet clients. Why? It’s not just about making users happy, but also making management happy.

    

Additional reading:

Creating A Measurable Intranet Strategy Prescient Digital Media (PPT with case study from PNC Bank)

5. Cost savings – why have an intranet if it’s not saving your organization money? Improved communications and HR are nice, soft benefits, but if the intranet is delivering those benefits, then it’s probably delivering cost savings that you just haven’t measured. Everything from paper, software, technology, administration, distribution / delivery, and travel costs to just about anything under the sun. There are hundreds of areas to save money with your intranet.

    

Additional reading:

Finding ROI: Measuring Intranet Investments (free white paper)

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As I highlighted in “Selling an Intranet Redesign”, too many organizations fail to understand the intranet's value and potential. “While there is hope that more executives will realize the intranet's value to their organization, there is still a pause for concern. The Global Intranet Trends 2009 report study finds that only 14% of the respondents consider the intranet as ‘business critical.’ And yet, companies like IBM, Cisco, and Oracle attribute billions of dollars in benefits to their intranets. Even small little-known companies like QAS, Placemaking, 1UP.com, and many, many others profiled on this site have shown positive ROI.

Now is the time to take advantage of the economic downturn, and to use the intranet as a competitive advantage to help drive:

• increased sales

• operational efficiencies

• improved communications

• enhanced collaboration

• faster time-to-market

• efficient human resources

• better employee productivity

Who could say no to any of the above? And yet, the intranet can delliver all of the above with a little care, direction, and senior management support. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and demonstrate how an intranet can enhance a corporation's position in the marketplace. Read on... Julian Mill's column The economy and your intranet: make the connection.

FREE WEBINAR:

Reserve your spot Putting Social Media to work in your Intranet Strategy (February 26th, 2009, 12PM EST). Reserve your spot today.

INTRANET ROI WHITE PAPER:

Download a free copy of Finding ROI: Measuring Intranet Investments (arpx 60 pages).

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Gerry McGovern says that you will earn more money if you start proving the value of the intranet. Sounds like something I would say (yeah, I know, a broken record).

Gerry is a firm believer “if you are in charge of your company's intranet you are in pole position to further your career.”

The bottom line: the vast majority of executives think the intranet delivers little value for the cost – and some believe it’s a waste of money. But most of these suits aren’t ignorant fools, they’re just ignorant. They need a sheppard to show them the way – to show them the money (see Measure your efforts).

Watch the vlog-like video clip Intranet Task Master with Gerry talking about the value of intranet measurement.

Every intranet should have a business case; a justification for being, including metrics that prove its worth. Along with user satisfaction, traffic metrics, and ROI, benchmarking information (what others are doing) is also important to know.

For the best possible data, the 2007 Global Intranets Survey (hosted and conducted by Jane McConnell) needs your participation. If you are an intranet manager or consultant then it’s in your best interest to spend 30 - 60 minutes completing this survey.  Every respondent will receive a complete report of the findings – which is very good intelligence for your intranet business case.

To participate in this year’s2007 Global Intranets Survey pleaseContact Jane McConnell.

The 2006 Survey revealed a number of key trends:

• 13% said their senior management perceived the intranet as "business critical
• 55% said their employees would be disturbed in their work if the intranet "went down" for 1 to 2 hours
• 60% say the main obstacle preventing the intranet from achieving its potential is that it is "too communication" and lacks integrated applications
• 70% say that a "lack of awareness of the potential role of the intranet" slows down strategic decision making
• 47% expect their intranet budgets to increase over the next 2 years
• Only 26% are required to measure ROI to justify new or current investments.
• Only 28% have implemented internal blogs and/or external blogs and/or wikis

Take the 2007 Global Intranets Survey by contacting Jane McConnell.

The 1980s and 1990s were tough times for British Airways. The new millennium was not kind either when in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some analysts began to wonder if BA would survive at all and talked openly about bankruptcy for more than one airline.

Since 2002, the company has re-engineered an impressive turnaround with an aggressive focus on cost-cutting and productivity. In late 2002 its share price had slumped to below £100; today BA’s share price is hovering around £500.

One catalyst for change during the impressive turnaround, in a hugely challenging business and environment, is the BA intranet. In 2001, BA put in place an ambitious plan for a low-tech intranet with lofty targets. Building on what some would call an antiquated platform, Lotus Notes and Domino, BA built an intranet that is delivering a measured value of £55 (more than US$100 million) per year.

“I have to admit I do get envious when I hear about all the technology that others (companies) are using,” confesses Alan Huish, BA’s manager of employee self-service when asked about using Lotus Notes. “But you cannot argue with our results.”

Read my complete case study feature Low-tech, high-value intraneton Communitelligence.com

Getting the necessary support and funding for an intranet redesign is usually a struggle at most organizations, particularly when most view the intranet as a cost center – a necessary evil. To change this mindset, intranet managers need to show them the money.

Senior management are much more likely to invest in an intranet if they can see it delivering measurable returns, such as increased business efficiency, reduced overheads and enhanced customer satisfaction. Increasingly the intranet manager will need to put in place viable processes for recording and reporting intranet value, in short demonstrating a return on investment (ROI) and employee productivity.

Presented by Prescient Digital Media and Summers Direct Selling A New Intranet to Senior Management is a webinar to arm you with invaluable ideas and steps for building a business case for redeveloping or redesigning your existing intranet.

Date: February 27, 2007 & Time: 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. (EST)

Specifically, we’ll teach you:

• Priorities for building a business case
• How to measure return on investment
• How to identify very specific measurable benefits
• Best practices & case studies that measure ROI

To register phone 1-866-869-7969 or e-mail register@summersdirect.com

NOTICE: The British Airways intranet webinar has been rescheduled to March 15, 2007. See Intranet Insider World Tour: British Airways.

RELATED READING:

Selling the intranet to senior management

Infant intranets need executive loving

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Despite the advances in technology and the potentially massive benefits and impressive ROI accrued from converting paper-based forms to online submission, many intranets still host a majority of their forms in MS-Word and PDF.

James Robertson writes in Automating three types of forms that “the ‘rule of thirds’ can be used to categorise the different types of forms within organisations:

• One third are very simple forms, with no logic or complex rules.
• The second third have some underlying rules, such as simple workflow or basic form logic.
• The final third are best considered as applications, such as employee self service (ESS).”

The first two types, in Robertson’s estimation represent about two-thirds of all forms to be found on the intranet, are either very simple or somewhat simple to implement. The third tend to be more complex applications that often get the bulk of attention.

HP’s intranet features 1,850 “e-services” and application. Just about any form you can imagine is an online service. Despite having a remote workforce that is mostly traveling, British Airways employees complete most of their forms online… many in the form of applications:

·         100% of internal (and external) recruitment is done online

·         100% of employee travel is booked online

·         75% of pensioner (retiree) self-service is done online (wow!)

·         80% of employees update their own contact information online (from 10% in 2003)

The number one application is e-Pay where employees access their paystub – delivering savings of $180,000 per year. These forms and applications are the primary drivers of $80 million in savings in the past year for British Airways.

Online forms make sense for a lot of reasons including making better the lives and jobs of employees. And they deliver a lot of savings and ROI.

Read James Robertson’s full article Automating three types of forms.

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The value of a really good intranet is considerable and immense. While usage, ROI, and employee satisfaction are typical and traditional performance measure for the intranet, the intranet is also leading to improved retention and job satisfaction.

At HCL Technologies, the intranet is a key component of its employee retention program (see Employees first` is the new mantra!, Business Standard).

Read my complete piece Intranet is key to good HR (Communitelligence.com)

To measure and increase the value of your intranet, please dowload the free white paper, Finding ROI.

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