In today’s digital-first world, enterprises with global and dispersed workforces face the challenge of keeping their employees informed, connected with each other and aligned with organization strategy. This is why corporate intranet software has become a popular solution. But how exactly does it work, and what's the benefit to enterprises?
What is a corporate intranet?
A corporate intranet is a private, secure network that serves as an internal digital hub for an organization’s employees. If used correctly, it acts as a single source of truth for company resources, communication, and collaboration tools. Unlike the internet, which is accessible to the public, an intranet is restricted to authorized users, typically employees.
Modern intranets go beyond static web pages and document storage. They integrate dynamic features such as real-time communication, task management, social networking, and knowledge sharing, helping employees do their best work.
What are the benefits of implementing corporate intranet software?
1. Bridging physical gaps
With employees often spread across different locations, maintaining open communication can be a challenge. A corporate intranet breaks down silos by enabling real-time messaging, discussion forums, and company-wide announcements. Employees can collaborate seamlessly, regardless of their physical location. This helps enterprises move faster - something that is more important than ever today.
2. Streamlined knowledge sharing
Enterprises generate vast amounts of knowledge across departments and regions. Without a structured system, this knowledge can become fragmented and difficult to access. This has a knock-on effect where employees are unable to access the information and skills they need to do their job. It's a classic example of a poor employee experience affecting your customer experience.
A corporate intranet acts as a centralized knowledge hub. Whether it's documents, instruction manuals, ways of working or training materials - a good intranet will make these easy to access.
3. A stronger culture
Creating a strong organizational culture starts with meaningful connections. Corporate intranets can help unite your workforce - whether people are office-based, frontline, hybrid, or remote workforce. Plus, knowing that there is a single place people look to for information gives leaders the confidence to use it for top-down messaging, ensuring everyone is aligned towards the same goal. Finally, many corporate intranets have features like recognition and employee spotlights, which are great for building morale and loyalty.
4. Workload reduction
Large organizations often see multiple employee requests coming through, and if these all have to be dealt with manually, this can lead to bottlenecks. A well-designed intranet enables employees to access self-service resources, submit requests, and find answers to common questions. As well as reducing the administrative load on HR and IT teams, it frees up resource for more strategic projects.
5. Reducing friction and inefficiencies
The sheer increase in digital tools actually creates an efficiency problem. Employees are constantly having to switch apps and systems for different things, and over the course of weeks, months and years, this equates to a lot of lost time and productivity. It's not great for wellbeing either, with digital noise becoming an increasingly onerous issue.
Modern intranets should be able to eliminate this friction by integrating with existing systems, meaning workflows become a lot more streamlined. This ensures employees can access all the tools they need in a more seamless way - saving time and boosting productivity.
6. A more secure place to do business
Enterprises work with a large number of stakeholders, suppliers and contractors. A corporate intranet is a secure place for external parties to access the information they need while keeping your internal business invisible to them. Different access levels keep your confidential information secure but also encourage collaboration with third parties. For example, freelancers can confirm purchase orders, submit invoices and read contracts within your corporate intranet when administrators can actively manage their access rights for viewing, submitting and editing content.
What to know when looking for a corporate intranet
Tailor it to what employees want
An intranet should be built around how employees work, not just what looks impressive on paper. If employees can’t find the information they need or don’t see the value, adoption will be low. Understanding their needs is the first step toward a rewarding launch. Here are a few things to do in advance
- Survey employees to identify common challenges and inefficiencies
- Analyze existing intranet usage to see which areas are underutilized
- Observe workflows, particularly for frontline and remote employees, to determine what tools they need quick access to
TDECU, a Texas-based credit union, was ready to improve this area when they came to Unily to transform their old intranet. During their intranet refresh journey, they discovered their employees struggled to find key documents quickly. Their outdated intranet created inefficiencies, slowing down service and impacting employee and customer experience. By gathering feedback, they identified the need for a centralized, user-friendly platform that provided quick access to essential resources.
Select the best-fit corporate intranet
If your intranet is complex and outdated, the chances of you gaining traction are low. The best corporate intranet solutions work hand-in-glove with your existing infrastructure, and seamlessly fit into employee workflows.
Here are some key factors to consider :
User experience: Is the intranet intuitive and designed for ease of use? Can your employees easily find what they need?
Customization: Can the intranet be tailored to different teams or departments? By personalizing the features to suit your employees’ needs, you can make your intranet work for you. When designed strategically, a single platform has the potential to unite everyone around shared organizational goals and values – while still enabling employees to have diverse experience based on their roles and location-based needs.
Integration: Does it connect with essential workplace tools and apps? This was a chief consideration for TDECU.
Analytics: Can it track employee engagement and provide insights for improvement? As TDECU found out, tracking analytics is a huge game changer.
"We were investing quite a bit of resource into our intranet and employee communications, but we weren't able to track the reach or usage with any great accuracy. Any feedback was anecdotal, we didn’t have any metrics or data to know what was working. The fact that Unily provides the option to track analytics and discover this information was pretty exciting.”
Laura Whitley - VP of Communications at TDECU
Corporate should also mean consumer-grade
Today, people expect their employee experience to mirror what they get as consumers. Take Amazon as an example of how next-generation technology plays in enhancing the consumer experience. Much of its rise is thanks to their ability to create a seamless purchasing journey. Whether it's Google-like search abilities, recommender systems, and on-demand services – Amazon cultivates top-tier interactions from start to finish.
This is exactly what your corporate intranet solution should also offer. It isn't enough to simply see it as a communications app. Things like personalized content and seamless search are fast becoming table stakes when it comes to corporate intranet software, so keep this in mind when searching for a platform.
It's worth remembering this when it comes to the actual design of your intranet as well. Ensure that the language you use across your employee experience platform is common sense. Employees shouldn’t have to learn new terminology to use your intranet. A real-world example is using universal icons to depict certain functions, like the power button, so users immediately understand how to operate them.
For your corporate intranet, this means calling a spade a spade: don’t stray too far from the language and features that we expect as standard.
The only true Enterprise EX Platform
Advancements in internal communications and cloud technology have made corporate intranet platforms an indispensable tool for large and dispersed workforces. Today’s enterprise intranets are sleek and easy to navigate, making them an essential platform to help organizations break silos, reduce friction and pivot at the speed today's world requires.
Unily’s out-of-the-box corporate intranet solutions have been tailored to help some of the world’s most successful businesses. Shell and The Estée Lauder Companies are just a few of the big-name companies that have benefited from our expertise.
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