From the Intranet ROI webinar, here are (with some paraphrasing) some of the questions and answers on return on investment (ROI) and intranets:
Q – How do you get people to measure costs in the organization?
A- As the participant alluded to in so many words, it is difficult to get people to find, measure or share their often guarded cost data. However, the only way to measure ROI is to first determine the costs, and then measure or project the future value. Therefore cost measurement begets ROI measurement. Getting fellow managers and employees to go out and gather cost data is an exercise in motivation.
At Prescient, we conduct a team workshop with key managers from IT, Finance, Operations, Human Resources, Communications and others that might be relevant keepers of cost data that might include business unit or corporate service managers.
After introducing the concept and using case studies and benchmark examples we use a detailed matrix and review some of the 150+ measurable ROI benefits that can be accrued to an intranet or portal. Benefits are reviewed and agreed to and individual participants are assigned ‘homework’ to hit the books and to get the data (e.g. the current costs of operating the IT help desk, independent intranet sites, e-mail servers, etc.). See the Intranet ROI Workshop for more information.
Q- How does Cisco or others determine what goes on their home page?
A- Known intranet leaders such as IBM and Cisco have had intranets for more than a dozen years. So, for starters, they’ve had a lot of practice. Secondly, in those years, they’ve spent a lot of time getting to know employees and what they want. A lot of time has been put into tweaking and enhancing as the result of studying web logs, conducting user surveys, focuses groups and usability testing. Not to mention implementing best practices.
But it’s not just delivering on employee needs and expectations, but also those of the organization as a whole including management requirements and strategic goals. At IBM, the intranet home page is a personalized portal powered by Websphere. So the end user has the ability to pick and choose some of the content that appears on their home page (see
At Cisco, no personalization is delivered, but the user has the option to choose their own hot links or “My Links” – individual bookmarks that appear on the user’s home page. There is also role-based dashboards or pages that are targeted to specific employee roles such as new employees, managers, administrative, engineering, sales, and others.
How does understanding employee requirements relate to ROI? The intranet has to deliver value for employees to use it. If you build it... and employees don't see value in using the intranet, they will not come. If they don't come, you won't get the ROI.
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© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media