Intranets don’t deliver good ROI; applications deliver great ROI. Or so we’re told.

Why do stores like the Gap, Target, Nordstrom’s, etc. locate in malls? Malls exist because they attract a lot of shoppers and therefore retailers like the Gap are willing to pay a lot of rent to realize the sales and ROI that come from those shoppers. If the shopping mall doesn’t exist, a lot of retailers lose out. The stores don’t get the sales, and they don’t get the ROI.

The intranet benefits applications as the mall benefits stores. Intranets drive traffic to applications which reap the big ROI.

One of my favorite application ROI examples is the fantastic SuperSleuth sales lead tool on the SodhexoUSA intranet (see Best practices case study: Sodexho USA). SuperSleuth is an intranet application that encourages employees to submit sales leads and prospective clients via the intranet. Successful leads submitted via the SuperSleuth intranet page generate cash rewards of up to $1000 for the person making the submission. Sodexho says it has contributed to a 100% increase in sales leads in the past year and led to US$90 million dollars in managed volume (net client sales including sales by client).

The Sodexho intranet home, compliments of SodexhoUSA

("Revolutionizing Employee Communication", Angelo Ioffreda, Sodexho USA)

SuperSleuth is an intranet based tool that would be no means receive that volume of leads nor generate the dollars it does without the intranet to drive those leads. The intranet home page promotes the tool and generates the traffic that reaps the reward.

It’s no longer acceptable for an accountant or techie to tell you that you can’t count the ROI on the employee directory, or online expense form, or sales lead generator as intranet ROI. The intranet begets the tool that delivers the value and as such should be recognized as a successful delivery platform that delivers ROI.

While some tools like online benefits enrollment might still generate a high ROI without the foundation that is the intranet, others like SuperSleuth depend on the intranet. It’s fair to say, based on my anecdotal and measured observations, that many applications owe 50% of their value to the intranet.

Without the mall, many stores would scramble for customers – many enterprises are without a business model. Like the mall, the intranet ensures the success of its application stores and makes possible a business model that wouldn’t exist without a supporting foundation.

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

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For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

I receive many, many questions about different content management systems and portal products and asked for my opinions on one product or vendor versus another. My response, in short, is: who cares!!

Okay usually I’m a little more polite than that, and I try not to foam at the mouth or have a hissy fit (hey, I’m only a product of my environment and I have two young daughters). My long response is a little more intelligent: it doesn’t matter what a product has or can do, what is more important is what it can do for you. More specifically, how does it meet your organization’s specific user, business and functional requirements?

Sharepoint promotional slide (Microsoft.com) with the requisite

stock photo to make me want to buy... she's cute but...

The number one vendor I’m questioned about is Microsoft, particularly Sharepoint. I know some friends and colleagues at Microsoft will give me a tough time on this, but I am completely technology neutral. Neither my company Prescient nor I have any technology partnerships or reseller (VAR) agreements with any vendor. That makes me and Prescient a very rare breed. The vast majority of even the small web design shops have partnerships with one or several vendors like Microsoft; making those firms bias. I am not and have no axe to grind with MS. In fact, I like Microsoft, I admire the Sharepoint team, and I like Microsoft’s own corporate portal (MSWeb).

However… I am not yet intimately familiar with the latest version of Sharepoint. But I am not a fan of the previous version, and I do not like the Microsoft CMS. The previous version of Sharepoint and CMS were very simplistic and limited; fine for very simple document management, but in my opinion, not very good for an enterprise intranet. Sharepoint is a fine product for some organizations, but wouldn’t be a good fit for many others.

Here’s the crux of my point: what works for one organization is sure not to work for yours. Everyone organization is unique with unique needs. This is not just true for Microsoft, but for ALL vendors and products. We’re working with a client that uses Plumtree. And frankly, this implementation, like most of the Plumtree implementations that I’ve seen, is brutal. However, I’ve also seen a very good Plumtree implementation for GlaxoSmithKline (I’ll be doing a case study article in the coming weeks).

But forget about what I have to say about Sharepoint, or what IT says, or any other company (including Microsoft). Best spend your time determining what you need to do, and then match those needs to the available solutions.

If you’re planning a new intranet – or extranet or website – take a few weeks to really thoroughly document your user, business and functional requirements for a CMS or intranet platform and then match them to several different vendor offerings. There are thousands of potential solutions to power your intranet. Take the time to thoroughly understand and document your needs and a few of these vendors.

The best way to find the best solution for your organization’s needs is through a *detailed* RFP. Get the vendors working for your business… don’t just look at the product offerings of a couple and make a decision. It might be that Sharepoint or Plumtree works for you in the end, but why not make certain. It’s just too expensive and complex a decision not to spend a few weeks gathering requirements and evaluating a few vendors accordingly.

NOTE TO VENDORS: Please don’t spam me with your sales pitches on why Sharepoint or your solution is the cat’s meow. This is not a critique of Sharepoint, Plumtree or any other solution. It’s a recommendation for following a *process* to choose Sharepoint, Plumtree or another solution.

ALSO READ: The SharePoint Plan (MOSS)

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About the author: Toby Ward is an intranet consultant (Internet consultant too) and the founder of Prescient Digital Media. He has worked with and improved many, many company intranets including Amgen, HSBC, Mastercard, Manulife, PepsiCo, Royal Bank, etc. Toby and his company are consultants for hire and can help improve your intranet. You may contact this intranet consultant directly.

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The start of a new year brings a lot of predictions – the promise of bigger, better, faster; prognostications for the future; and the annual Intranet Design Annual by Jakob Nielsen et al.

While we’re only 15 days into 2007, the report is promoted as “the 10 Best Intranets of 2007.” I’m not sure how that’s possible, but Nielsen is a master of promotion – which is very, very good. Nielsen is a true thought leader and, by all accounts, a genius. Usability and design is his tapestry and laboratory. And marketing is one of his gifts.

But beware the hype. Only a small fraction of an intranet’s value is design and usability – tertiary aspects to the larger value delivered by content, planning and resources. This value appears to be an afterthought to the authors of the report in years past, but at least they are forthright in promoting the report for what it is: a ‘design’ annual.

The report though is very well written and there are some great case studies and screenshots. At US$179, the report is great value. (Funny, I promote this report every year and despite all my readers I’ve never  gotten a note for them… no response ever. Perhaps I’m too frank and not selling it hard enough… though I’d be surprised if this column delivers no less then a few dozens sales for them. Am I becoming an intranet snob?!? J).

This year’s winners (keep in mind that these aren’t really the best of the year, just the best of the submissions and screenshots that Nielsen Norman received) include:

• American Electric Power (AEP), United States
• Comcast, United States
• DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany
• The Dow Chemical Company, United States
• Infosys Technologies Limited, India
• JPMorgan Chase & Co., United States
• Microsoft Corporation, United States
• National Geographic Society, United States
• The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), United Kingdom
• Volvo Group, Sweden

Here are some interesting tidbits from the report offered up in Nielsen’s latest column 10 Best Intranets of 2007:

• Dow uses English for most global content, but translates the most important content into six other languages (Dutch, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish). It also translates selected content into Chinese, Greek, Japanese, and Thai.
• The most-used products were: Windows Server, Google Search Appliance or Google Mini, SharePoint, SQL Server, Google Maps, Omniture, and Vignette
• Across the first three Intranet Design Annuals (2001-2003), the winning intranets were 4.3 years old on average. Across the three most recent Annuals (2005-2007), intranets were 7.5 years old on average
• Across the first three Design Annuals (2001-2003), the average intranet contained 200,000 pages; across the three most recent Annuals (2005-2007), the average intranet contained 6 million pages
• This year’s intranet winners have the following owners: 35% were in Corporate Communications, 27% were in Information Technology or Information Systems (IT/IS), and 19% were in Human Resources (HR)
• Comcast's marketing extranet has reduced versioning and distribution costs by 50-60% and reduced delivery time even more
• Infosys has experienced a 65% drop in help desk calls since launching its redesign

OK here’s the big free plug you can bank on Jakob: you can buy directly online the 360-page Intranet Design Annual with 199 screenshots.

Not a lot of organizations are choosing open source software for their enterprise intranet. It has been seen as risky. But open source is changing and evolving – for the better.

Goodwill stores is an exception and they highlight their experience in an excellent case study that talks about the pros and cons of their open source selection and implementation in Enterprise Open Source Magazine (see Bringing Thousands of Workers Together with an Open Source Intranet Solution).

"While the selection process was no different or faster compared to selecting a proprietary project, implementation was dramatically quicker. Because there is no licensing involved in open source solutions we simply went to the vendor's Web site, downloaded the software and dropped it into our data center. Within a couple of hours it was up and running, although it did require some significant integration to get the portal customized to our needs, and that work continues today. Even so, the first beta release of MyGoodwill was made just eight weeks after the software was initially downloaded, which is extremely fast for an enterprise application."

If it's a proven solution, I see open source as less risky then many propietary solutions. I'd like to see more examples and case studies.

Read Bringing Thousands of Workers Together with an Open Source Intranet Solution.

Have a good story or case study? Post a comment or e-mail me at toby{at}prescientdigital{dot com}

What is the difference between a good intranet and a great intranet? What do you do to get to great?

There is no simple answer. In fact, using the Prescient Digital Media intranet methodology of rating and scoring an intranet out of 10, I estimate that to advance a 6 out of 10 intranet to an 8 out of 10 requires twice the effort and much more intelligent thinking.

In preparing a magazine article on great intranets I developed a success factor comparison matrix on good and great intranets based on real experience with both good and great intranets with an average of 5,000 employees. The following is a summary of the complete table to be published in a couple of months:

For the complete table or more information on evolving your intranet from good to great then please contact me directly: toby{at}prescientdigital{dot com}.

The intranet is not a communications tool; nor a technology. And it’s certainly not just a website. The intranet is a business system to support the entire company. It touches and represents all facets of the business, and if executed properly, improves all aspects of the business.

A successful intranet improves:

• employee communications
• business processes
• time-to-market
• sales and revenue
• operations
• human resources
• financial administration
• information retrieval
• employee self-service

More and more often the intranet is being owned by or driven by communications. However, to properly steer the intranet, one must ditch the communicators hat and don a management cap.

The leader(s) of the intranet requires a multiplicity of talents:

• build and secure internal consensus
• sell and market the benefits of the intranet to senior management
• evangelize the use and involvement to employees
• advocate and secure funding
• understand and deploy technology platforms and applications
• track and measure costs and benefits
• manage and train managers
• write and edit for the web 

A such, the internal communications role is evolving, if not dying.

“Internal communication people need to stop thinking about ourselves as internal communicators. Because we’re simply not anymore. And we shouldn’t be,” says Keven Keohane, Head of Engagement Consulting for global brand agency.

“It’s no longer about crafting the right messages, ensuring they are delivered using the right channels at the right time, and getting feedback and “engagement,” writes Keohane Enterprise IG in The end of internal communications (www.simply-communicate.com).

“Internal communicators need to start thinking of themselves as business process support (and in some cases, design) experts and part of the team that directly enables the organisation and its stakeholders to deliver the best possible customer experience.”

Read the full article The end of internal communications

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© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media