The recession-proof Intranet

At last week's IBF Global Member Meeting in Liverpool there was a discussion about what to say when the CFO tells you (as the Intranet Manager) to cut back.

The three main points that every Intranet Manager should be prepared to demonstrate at any time are:

1. State the current investment level
2. List current Intranet services and deliverables including their benefits to the organisation
3. List additional beneficial intranet services that can be added at low cost to help the organisation improve or cut costs

Examples of things that should be on the list for 2. or 3. (and their likely benefits) include:

• Travel Booking (saves transaction costs)
• Online Meeting Tools (saves time and travel costs)
• Live chat (can augment employee engagement in economical difficult times)
• Leadership online (as above)
• „One Source of Truth“ (can reduce risk and error, increase reputation)
• Room Booking (saves manual labour)
• On Boarding Services (enables new hires to work efficiently faster)
• Off Boarding Services (enables to minimize knowledge drain)
• HR Self Services (saves transaction costs and manual labour)
• Web Library (saves distribution costs and time on finding books, reports, etc.;   avoids duplicate buying/subscriptions)
• Sell advertising space on the intranet to external organisations (actually generates income and provides benefits to employees)
• ...

There are many more such examples and we would like to hear what your principal arguments are for using the intranet as a cost cutter as opposed to cutting intranet costs.

Further reading:

• 12 ways to use your intranet to save costs
• Recession-proof your Intranet strategy

Comments

[Andrew Donnelly]

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[Olivier Amprimo]

Hi Stephan,

I think it really depends what you define as an intranet.

Today you have classical, non-social intranets that deliver corporate documents and corporate information, but also social intranets where people generate and exchange ideas, discuss and work round them on a daily basis.

We all know that the first type of intranets is usually not the center of attention of employees, so it won't be a surprise if your CFO ask the type of questions you refer to. To an extreme this type of communication device can be shut down : there will be no real impact on work and it will save money!

Now, for the second type of intranet, it's a totally different story. The intranet is the organisational platform of tacit knowledge and information flows. And everybody knows that they are the basis of collaboration and execution as they help inform and make sense of processes. In this regard, the intranet is a key tool for creating value and competitiveness. Of course, there is a need for smart metrics to back this up. Your list is interesting as it helps moving away from the poor analytics we commonly use (based on logs). With decent metrics and second generation intranets, you can bet that the Intranet Manager is probably to be the last one to be called in by the CFO :-)

Cheers,

[Stephan Schillerwein]

Hi Olivier, thank you for your very interesting thoughts.

In the meeting mentioned in the post we also discussed the "version number" of today's employees (i.e. 'Employee 1.0' and 'Employee 2.0'). Likewise, the situation you describe also requires an 'CFO 2.0' as the benefits of a social intranet (that you and I might instinctively take as business value) will translate to cost savings and additional business only to those senior managers, who have come to realize the emergent nature of the value a social intranet can create. Unfortunately, most CFOs I've encountered are still applying traditional ways of evaluating such things, though. Thus a 'CFO 1.0' will be more likely to see value in the top-down communication part of an intranet, while potentially considering blogs, wikis, social networking et al. rather as time-wasting tools.

So, I guess, it will be a while until both intranets themselves and senior managers have come to the point where the intranet manager can put the risk of cost-cutting completely from his mind.

[Martin Bechtel]

Hi Stephan,
those kind of questions will always be around. And rightly so. At leat if we do not talk about a non profit orgainsation. And of course there are always things intranet manager can reduce or postpone. But in my view it is cruical for CxO´s to understand, that cost can not be reduced freely. An intranet needs a certain level of maintenance, resources and investment. At least for a short periode of time intranets can exisit on this level. But if cost cutting fall short of this level the intranet simply passes away. And, to revitalise the intranet in better times will be much more expensive than any cost cutting effect. This is the message CxO´s have to understand and to keep in mind.

[Stephan Schillerwein]

Hi Martin, very good point! These 'future risk costs' should definitely be on the list.

Even if intranets become a (vital) part of the 'infrastructure', there will always be demands to deliever the same (or more) with less. The same has been true for production processes for decades now, and often this has proven to be a source for innovation.

BT for example are treating their digital assests (such as the intranet) the same way they treat physical ones (see: Intranet management? It’s business as usual in BT by Mark Morrell: http://markmorrell.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/intranet-management-its-business-as-usual-in-bt/).