In modern business, an intranet is the central nervous system of your organization. Is yours firing on all cylinders, or is it time for a strategic overhaul? Your intranet should be a dynamic ecosystem that grows and evolves with your business – here’s why and how to transform it.
Intranet Redesign Explained
An intranet redesign or rebuild isn’t just an update; it’s a revival. It’s the transformation of your company’s core communication hub into a vibrant digital workplace that aligns with your strategic vision. It’s where cutting-edge technology meets streamlined communication, fostering an environment of collaboration, productivity, and innovation.
The Catalysts for Change
Why consider a redesign? Consider these when building a business case:
- Productivity Amplification: A robust intranet eliminates information silos, slashing the time employees spend in the search for information, thereby accelerating decision-making processes and driving productivity.
- Technological Symbiosis: As tech evolves, so should your intranet. Embrace advancements like AI to keep your digital environment at the forefront of innovation.
- User Experience Paradigm: User dissatisfaction can be a silent adversary to productivity and adoption. An intuitive, user-friendly intranet is the solution to digital frustration. Having a better way to target, inform, and engage employees with information in a multi-channel approach fosters a better workplace experience.
- Fortified Security: A redesign is a gateway to advanced security protocols, safeguarding your company’s digital assets.
- Robust Integration: Streamline workflows by integrating your intranet with other enterprise applications such as Microsoft 365, enhancing cohesion across departments and global teams.
The Roadmap to Revitalization
Navigating an intranet redesign can be challenging, here are some helpful steps to guide you:
Step 1: System Evaluation
Begin with an introspective look at your current intranet’s performance. Harness analytics and feedback to gauge usage patterns and user satisfaction. What do your employees love about your intranet, and where does it fall short? This step is about building on strengths, identifying weaknesses, and recognizing opportunities for change.
Pro Tip: Benchmark your intranet against the industry’s best to understand where you stand and where you could be. Consider your intranet deployment, security, and infrastructure. Would it be best to host in an existing secure environment where your employees already work, such as Microsoft 365? Do you prefer to maintain an externally hosted solution where there may be a big uplift, such as content migration and duplication efforts?
Step 2: Gathering Insights from the Ground
User and departmental feedback are invaluable. Deploy surveys, conduct interviews, and engage in dialogue with those who navigate your digital corridors daily. Their insights will be the cornerstone of a user-centric redesign.
Pro Tip: Use diverse channels to collect feedback to ensure no voice is left unheard. This is critical to building a business case and gathering requirements and objectives for your new intranet. The adage of “if you build it, they will come” does not apply to successful intranets.
Step 3: Defining Redesign Objectives
With organizational feedback in hand, develop your redesign goals. Adhere to the SMART framework and ensure they resonate with your broader organizational aspirations.
Pro Tip: Involve stakeholders from various departments to align the intranet’s functionality with multiple business needs. Having a steering committee or a select number of individuals from various departments such as Comms, IT, Marketing, and HR makes this process much easier.
Step 4: The Implementation
With your roadmap drawn, it’s time to bring the vision to life. Develop, integrate, and iterate, keeping the user experience at the heart of the process. Employ a pilot group to test, refine, and perfect the new intranet before a full-scale launch.
Pro Tip: Schedule regular check-ins with your pilot group to maintain alignment and adjust as needed. Leverage industry experts who have experience working with the selected technology, but also redesigning and building intranet portals. Just because an organization has experience working with an intranet vendor doesn’t equate to a successful intranet implementation and launch.
Continuous Evolution Post-Launch Remember, the launch is just the beginning. Maintain an iterative approach, refining and enhancing the intranet with ongoing feedback and technological advancements. You don’t have to address all your business objectives at once. Many organizations continually evolve and add new capabilities to their intranet to keep it fresh and exciting for their employees.
The Payoff: An Intranet That Empowers
A well-orchestrated intranet redesign can catapult your company into a future where productivity soars, communication is effortless, and engagement is the status quo. By choosing an intranet platform that’s flexible and forward-looking, like Powell Intranet, you’re investing in a digital environment that’s as ambitious as your business goals.
Is an SharePoint intranet redesign on your horizon? Book an meeting with us today and find out how Powell can bring ease to your intranet project.
