Intranet Benchmarking Forum

How to make your intranet ‘recession-strength’

As the global recession takes hold, intranets increasingly find themselves in the firing line. As IBF founder Paul Miller pointed out in his recent blog post, even among IBF member organisations, which between them run some of the world’s most advanced intranets, budgets are being cut and new developments turned down.

 

The smartest intranet managers are responding by finding new ways for the intranet to deliver previously hidden value for the organisation – whether through improving productivity, cutting costs or driving revenue. They’re also busy gathering data to show that's what they're doing. In this way, they’re turning the threat of cutbacks into an opportunity to ensure that they, their intranets and their organisations survive and prosper in tough times.

 

At IBF, this is very topical for us and our member organisations. We’re discussing the whole issue of ‘recession-strength intranets’ at the next Intranets Live, and putting together a short briefing paper on the topic.

 

Intranets Live examines the recession-strength intranet

Next month’s Intranets Live on Tuesday 3 March (3-5pm GMT) takes as its theme the recession-strength intranet. Co-hosted by Amy Kornbluth from Citi, the online show includes:

·      live intranet tour from Schroders,

·      field report from the Web 2.0 Summit

·      panel discussion about the recession-strength intranet

·      breaking news from the world of intranets and portals.

 

An annual subscription to Intranets Live, which takes place on the first Tuesday of every month, costs £1,950/US$3950/€2,950. There are already more than 400 people signed up from organisations including the BBC, BP, Anglo-American, ExxonMobil, Cadbury, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, KPMG, Cabinet Office, Scottish Government, Charles Schwab, and Petro-Canada.

 

You can try out next month’s episode by registering for a free guest pass. Or you can go ahead and subscribe now. 

 

Briefing paper: call for case studies

We’re also compiling a short briefing paper providing some current examples of organisations creating value through intranets that are ‘recession-strength’. The idea is to give intranet managers inspiration and practical ideas for their own programmes.

 

The paper will be released to IBF members as a supplement to our mainstream research. Shortly after its release to members, a shorter version with case study subjects made anonymous and screen shots removed will be made available to non-members.

 

We currently have examples from six participating organisations, and we’re on the look out for two more. All we’d need is 20 minutes of your time on the phone or a brief e-mail exchange. In return for your contributing an example, we’d send you the non-anonymous version of the report, including screen shots. Plus you’d get the kudos from having your example highlighted to IBF’s influential member base.

 

If you have an example you think we could include, please contact me, Paul Johnson, at paulj@ibforum.com.

Is your intranet ready for interactive communication?

At each IBF member meeting we have a stop press section to demonstrate and swap notes on members' current intranet successes and challenges.  At last week's IBF member meeting in London one of the subjects which generated much discussion was around the use of the intranet as a communication channel in these current turbulent economic times.

 

Whilst some member organisations have opened up news stories and senior leader blogs to open comment from intranet users, others are finding managers still nervous to do this. 

As we discussed, in the current climate many organisations have some large scale communications to do, and it's not always good news.  Open and two-way communications can help, as was demonstrated by one member organisation on the day. So is this a time to open up your one-way communication habit and encourage more feedback, discussion and comment online?

One the key success factors hinges around whether the company culture is ready for it.  If you have a culture where employees are encouraged feed into plans, face-to-face Q&A with leaders etc, then they'll feel happier to do the same online.  If your communication culture is very one way, just opening up a comments option online probably won't suddenly provide a solution and change things.

Although it might feel risky, most of those IBF members who have embarked on open two-way on-line communications have had very successful results.  One example regularly shared outside the IBF group is BT. 

So questions to ask yourself - does your intranet support your current communication culture?  Is it ready for the next one?  Is it adapting to changing times and changing communication cultures?  Will it be ready when it's really needed, or if a new leader comes along with a different style?