“Anyone that says intranets are dead, or can be replaced by enterprise social network alternatives, is ignoring the basic needs that an intranet fulfills…all of which our study showed were important to employees.” –Andy Jankowski
Did we statistically prove the case for a social intranet? YES! As a guest speaker at the IABC World Conference in San Francisco, Andy highlighted findings from his company’s econometric study of company intranets. In partnership with the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC), Enterprise Strategies applied econometric principles to the results of over 200 intranet surveys and statistically pinpointed which intranet attributes most impact a user’s perception of their intranet. Many of us have heard in meetings, read in blogs, and heard from software companies “intranets are dead.” This simply is not true. Intranets are quite alive. Our study shows that employees materially value basic functions that intranets provide.
Confirming the Intranet Basics
With 99% confidence, the study determined the more often employees use their intranet to do these three things, the higher their overall valuation of their intranet:
–Complete forms
–Upload and download documents
–Find instructions for completing work tasks
Not only were all the above features vital to a positive rating, but when benchmarking intranets against each other, those that have the social collaboration features benchmark higher than those that do not. With 94% confidence, the study determined that the more often employees use the intranet to provide feedback or comments about content, the higher their overall valuation it.
No, the intranet is not going anywhere. Employees will depend on it for basic functions – regardless of the technology. Communication and collaboration technology will continue to evolve, as will company intranets, but it is the people and process that support them that will determine their performance — not the technology itself.
