It can be difficult to find a perfect match in a market where there are so many choices. Especially for those looking to improve communication and the information sharing within their organization. Getting the proper pre-planning advice and guidance is just as crucial as choosing what software to use and how to set up and manage your corporate intranet. Make sure you can speak to someone who can ease any of your concerns, provide advice and best practices, and ensure you make the best choice for your business. Not all companies needs are the same, but most companies can benefit from having a corporate intranet to make work easier for your employees.
You see blogs all the time about the intranet being “dead” or on it’s way out. Some companies read these articles and decide that an intranet may not be for them. If they are looking for the first time, information like this can create confusion. These obstacles aren’t necessarily fitting for all intranet software providers. After either having a bad prior experience with an intranet, or reading one of these articles some of these following thoughts may come up. Here are some common reasons why some don’t have a successful corporate intranet. Here are some common reasons why some companies don’t have a successful corporate intranet.
1. “Intranets are known for having too much clutter and outdated content.”
It’s true that an intranet can easily get cluttered with old news, documents and other items. The cause of this is usually, not just lack of admins managing the site, but also likely it’s an intranet that doesn’t make it easy to manage the content. Tools, like workflows that can utilize timers to automate auto-archiving or deleting of documents are very helpful to keep content fresh.
It’s important that your intranet has an easy to use interface for admins to copy, move and delete items and to add new content. Also empowering users to share content and write blogs, collaborate together, ask questions will help keep the content fresh. Therefore this may require a change in company culture as corporate information sharing is traditionally a one way street from management to the employees, and not vice versa.
2. “We don’t have money in the budget and do not see a return on the investment.”
Initially, it can be difficult to pinpoint a return on investment for your corporate intranet. Developing an in-house solution, or a Sharepoint site, requires significant time commitment from your IT group and other stakeholders. There are also multiple costs that can come up from different sources, depending on your solution. Some companies invest up to six figures setting up, maintaining and running a Sharepoint site. As powerful as it may be, it can be a very costly project for a lot of companies, and it’s limitations and shortfalls are quickly revealed.
Most out of the box vendors, like Noodle, will charge a per user fee. However, Noodle prides itself as providing a complete solution with all features/tools available to everyone out of the box. There is no need to purchase additional applications, or different levels/packages. This means you get full functionality of your intranet without any surprise expenses popping up if you want to utilize a feature that should be standard. Noodle’s ease and efficiency means a much higher return on investment as your employees will be finding information efficiently and communicate more effectively.
3. “We don’t have time or the expertise to manage a corporate intranet.”
If you are looking at the traditional in house website method, or a Sharepoint site, you need a technical expert to be in charge of setting things up and maintaining the site. It’s not usually something they can just set up and hand off to someone else. Some intranets are set up by one employee. However, when that employee leaves, no one knows how to manage the site. Noodle is designed for the end user. Even though IT may set up a Noodle site, they are not required. Any end user, despite technical knowledge, can add and update content on the intranet. Or they can manage the site on their own. No HTML knowledge required to build pages or e-forms, just use the built in editors.
You also need strong service, training and support form your vendor. Training should be provided for site administrators and content managers. Don’t go with a vendor who’s support is through a call center. These are usually not product experts, and you are unlikely to speak to the same person when you need support. Noodle provides a Technical Solutions Consultant who you will be able to contact for support with quick response times. Need help setting up a complicated workflow? Noodle support will be glad to assist you to make sure you are fully utilizing your intranet.
Do you have any other concerns holding you back from using Noodle as your corporate intranet solution? Speak to a Technical Consultant now and see how Noodle could solve your internal communications issues.