An intranet is a private web-based tool which helps to connect and build knowledge, talent, and relationships within an organization to improve business performance and gain competitive advantage. The term was coined in the 1990s to be the exact opposite of an Internet to indicate that the communication platform is restrictive within a group by definition.
Since then, the intranet has evolved into a platform for the employees in an organization to come together, share information and documents, manage projects, establish processes and identify knowledge gaps. The modern intranet is designed around employees at all level of an organization.
Why Your Company Needs One
The intranet helps business owners to create vibrant organizations that connect employees and enable teamwork. It can be the go-to resource for your employees to tap into the information and expertise they need on a daily basis.
A well-built intranet also takes the pain out of online collaboration so there is no more playing hide and seek with information and files, it can create a synergy between content and conversation even if the company is divided by teams, departments, projects, or locations.
Better Internal Communications
When an organization reaches a certain size it just not possible to gather everyone into a conference room to share important information or announcements. The problems can become manifold when there are more than one office spaces. Without clear communication, the employees will be disengaged, dislocated, misinformed, and it can lead to poor performance and an disengaged workforce.
There is no better tool at an organization’s disposal than an intranet to manage policies, procedures, guidelines, protocols, resources, corporate documents, branding, and logos etc. An intranet can help you bypass all these problems and communicate the intended message with clarity, in a way that is easy for the employee to engage with, and cost-effective.
Improved Collaboration
A structured intranet can be a trusted place for sharing calendars, meeting requests, files, and instant messaging for employees to engage with another person working quickly. So with such an intranet portal platform, improved collaboration becomes inevitable. It allows teams to easily carry out activities, have access to experts and be more and more connected, control document versions, assign tasks, and not induce app fatigue because everything happens under one hood.
Needless to say, there is a strong link between the tools you provide your employees and quality of output. After that, it becomes self-evident that the intranet is must for any organization that is looking to improve collaboration.
Streamlined Workflows
In large teams and organizations, it can be difficult for a manager to assign tasks or requests.’ This can be a problem when are timelines and a budget at stake and the void may very well lead to inefficiency.
An intranet offers a way around the problem with forms and other native tools that are intuitive and easy to use for employees to effectively assign tasks to people working inside and outside their teams. It can also help streamline, document, and automate operations and processes, version control documents, reference supporting material, get feedback and responses from team members in real time and so much.
Enhanced Productivity
An intranet comes with a combination of multiple tools like blogs, microblogs, wikis, discussion forums, and others. This naturally removes any silos and people finding information serendipitously. An intranet will have powerful inbuilt search so employees searching for information or documents find them easily. It can inform them about events, meetings, pending tasks, company news, and other custom notifications. So each morning when your employee comes in, he/she finds everything that they need to, need to be and need to read at one place.
The identity of your company can be radically transformed with the intranet, the closeness of people with the values and the management becomes cohesive, and employees get work done, thereby, driving up the bottom line of your organization.
Are you currently exploring intranet solutions for your business? PeopleOne is a Microsoft gold certified partner for content and collaboration. Our SharePoint intranets help many businesses share, organize and discover information better.
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