As I’ve written before, one of the great rewards of being a traveling intranet consultant is the opportunity to learn from many organizations, clients and colleagues about their intranet success and failures.

 

I’ve had the privilege to come to know and learn why Xerox continues to be an intellectual leader which is well exemplified by their intranet portal, WebBoard.

 

WebBoard is actually a series of internal websites but they are held accountable to defined governance, style and standards. The governance model is what I consider text-book ideal for most organizations (though what is good for one is not necessarily good for another). The intranet is owned by corporate communications but ultimately governed by a small senior executive team. Policy includes effective use and intranet development – with guidelines on content, technology, etc.

 

This policy and the accompanying standards create a unified, seamless user experience that is a hallmark of most successful intranets.

 

“It brings people to one seamless experience from an intranet perspective for broader employee access to tools and information,” says Karen Allen, Manager of Employee Communications and the Xerox WebBoard. “There’s a sense that it is familiar, you’re not jumping to different sites or experiences – we’re trying to create a simple, seamless experience so users know what to expect.”

 

The home page features true portal functionality including individual personalization and role-based customization (e.g. human resources professional, marketing communications, internal information, technology support, etc.). Customization options include stock market ticker, news sources (still working on external news feeds), organization news, weather, and formatting options.

 

All 58,100 Xerox employees have intranet access and the site enjoys 3-4 million page views per month – roughly two page views per employee per day. Not bad at all. That’s an engaged user population.

 

I believe however the key to Xerox’s intranet success has been their strategy. They developed a plan with defined objectives and goals and they engaged and involved both employees and senior executives in developing their strategy.

 

“Without a strategy and plan we would not have had executive buy-in (and funding),” says Allen. “We needed to prove to our leaders how useful and valuable the intranet is.”