Currently, with the great growth that information systems and the Internet have had, the growth of the Intranet also began, which has been implemented in companies at a corporate level seeking to contain the applications that are used in the company and in this way have all the services and applications in the same place where each employee of the company can access in order to manage and communicate data, information and knowledge. However, like any new system it has its advantages and disadvantages, so you must know well and know how to implement it to work successfully.
Some authors mention some rules to follow so that the development of the Intranet in a company is successful, here some of these points will be mentioned. It is worth mentioning that not only by following the points the total success of the system in the company will be achieved, first of all, it must be possible to break the paradigm that exists in most people with respect to drastic changes such as changing the way that work is currently under way to make use of Intranet technology; And finally, it should be clear that not only the successful implementation is enough, a maintenance and update plan must also be followed to help keep our system up to date.
During the last years many companies plan or have already implemented corporate Intranet in their system, around 80 percent of the companies have decided to improve their information dissemination system through the implementation of the Intranet.
But what exactly is the Intranet?
In an article on the implementation of corporate Intranet, Wagner, Cheng and Baratz (2002) explain the Intranet in a general way as "a private network of computers that talk to others through a common protocol or language…". Let's explain this in parts, a private network means that it can only be accessed by members of the organization to which that Intranet belongs; by saying that they talk to others through a common protocol, she tells us that the computers on that network can communicate with each other by sharing information using the same language.
In general, the Intranet, as well as networks, can be made up of only two computers as well as thousands of them, which can be located in the same place or even in different countries.
Many companies that are seriously considering making use of this powerful information technology and many others already enjoying its benefits had important questions to answer.
One of the questions that must be taken into account is the one that refers to the competition, customers and suppliers, if they are already making use of this technology, the most common answer is yes, and even if in some cases it was not. One must think that with the rapid growth that the Intranet is having, soon everyone will be involved, and being left out would imply being obsolete.
Another important question is whether the use of this new technology is safe, whether it is possible to use a public network such as the Internet for business applications without having control of what or how it works. An example that can help answer this question is the use of the telephone and fax, which are public networks very similar to the Internet, and which are used to carry out important businesses. As we know security is very important, however public networks are used for important transactions.
And finally the long-awaited question, can you expect a fast and sufficient return on investment? In reality the costs for the implementation of the Intranet are not very high and their investment returns are usually quick and worth it, but you must be careful when implementing an Intranet project, be careful not to exceed the implementation time that you have planned, when making the choice of technology to use.
There are several reasons to start making use of the Internet, but there are two important ones that Blanc (1998) mentions in one of his articles, “First, the Intranet can support your reengineering initiatives and can show the extra of any cost-benefit analysis…. The second reason is that the Intranet represents a fundamental technology change which can become an important business tool… "
As has been seen, the Intranet can present several benefits, although executives almost always seek to find the benefit that it can bring monetarily speaking, that is, the return on investment, (ROI for its acronym in English "Return on investment"), which It can be measured according to the increase in the level of quality of communication and how it has succeeded in replacing traditional forms of communication, this can be seen since the Intranet achieves a large reduction in traditional forms of communication, such as it is the printed matter and the person-to-person communication, which cause a reduction in costs.
To achieve a successful Intranet, you must invest in a good information architecture design, in order to avoid that the organization's Intranet does not develop as expected.
A successful Intranet requires planning and a long-term strategy; you cannot think of having a successful Intranet in 3 or 6 months, on the contrary, it takes up to 5 years to achieve it.
There are many authors who suggest steps to follow to achieve success in the implementation of the Intranet in the company, here some of these steps will be mentioned.
For a good Intranet design, the following points should be kept in mind:
1. Develop the Intranet following business priorities
All the goals and priorities of the Intranet must be a reflection of those established for the company, seeking to achieve the goals and tasks that users require.
2. Establish the metrics to use to evaluate progress
An important part of the intranet planning stage is identifying which metrics will be used to analyze the successful progress of the project.
For example, one way of measuring the success of the Intranet is to check the traffic on the network, but this can only be useful when the project has just been launched, since it can be verified in this way how interested the staff is in doing use of technology.
But over time the true way to measure success is by verifying the progress of productivity in business, which could be the scope of the ROI (return on investment). A “hard” ROI tells us that the intranet is being used as a substitute for many of the expensive internal methods; A “soft” ROI helps us to quantify how much employees have benefited from the use of the Intranet in the performance of their activities.
3. Obtain executive representation
One way to get employees interested in the use of a new information technology is by having senior executives set the example, employees seeing that their director and / or manager are making use of the Intranet will follow in their footsteps.
4. Create membership in employees
Not only senior management should be involved in the project of the new technology, Intranet, also employees should be involved and the deeper it is, the better it will be. It should be sought that employees participate in the project from its inception, before, during and after the launch, thus creating a sense of belonging to the project.
A very good tip for senior executives is to let employees know the project well and let them give their points of view, since suggestions can be very useful for the success of the launch, this simply means that executives must be open to hear the perspectives of employees.
5. Centralize infrastructure, decentralize content
When speaking of centralized infrastructure, it refers to a technical infrastructure, as well as the follow-up of a standard design and advertising that allows the successful development of the Intranet.
Decentralizing the content only means that a mechanism must be created through which the participation of those who feel the desire to contribute to the content of the Intranet is allowed, all suggestions must be received and an analysis of what would benefit the success of the project, seeking that the site has the best content, the most appropriate and efficient.
A highly recommended option is to allow the presentation of the content of the page to be personalized, in this way it can be achieved decentralize the content and at the same time we create the sense of belonging of the employees by making use of a tool that is " designed ”by themselves, at least in presentation and content.
6. Know the users
One of the big mistakes made when launching these types of projects is designing their content according to what you want employees to know. Normally, the Intranets that were designed according to the needs of the employees and not those of the company executives, were successful. Although this data may be contradictory since it was commented in previous points that it is necessary to seek to follow the priorities of the company, but it is also very true that employees also know those priorities and according to them they know what they need to have for the company. good job performance.
A very important point here is the continuous change that the site must undergo, since users, in this case employees, are constantly changing their needs.
In addition to this, it is necessary to know well the tools that users need to display the information presented on the Internet page, for example, PDF-type files will not be put when there is no viewer for this type of files. This would decrease the productivity of the employee.
7. Get started with a useful application
Most employees need a good reason to start using the new project, the Intranet, and a very useful incentive is to have on this site some useful application for the performance of their activities and that motivates them to return to visit the page.
Specifically from which application the project should start can vary according to the needs of the company, since all companies have different needs and can vary over time.
8. Keep content fresh, strong, and fun
An Intranet page requires that its content is updated day by day, if not, users will not feel motivated to visit it, since they will feel that the content is obsolete, that it is not updated, which in turn would indicate that the information that they could get from there would be of no use. Remember that a key point is the quality of the content and not the quantity, because it is not about filling the site with irrelevant information.
However, it is well known that there will be some pages on the site that will not require updating as often as others, but you should seek to have the page with content that is as fresh and accurate as possible.
A good way to do this is by changing the appearance of it, adding or removing images, changing the primary colors with which it started and thus basic details, seeking not to tire the user with the use of a site that always has the same appearance.
9. Continuously advertise the "site"
A good tool that encourages users to use the Intranet is the publicity it may receive.
Good publicity such as showing how the Intranet has been useful for many other users helps to increase the number of people who want to benefit from the use of this tool.
Achieving more users and maintaining them consistently is an arduous task that advertising must achieve, in order to increase the benefits to more users and thereby make the company grow.
10. Be patient and aspire to continuous improvement
A last point, but no less important, is the constant growth and search for improvement for the site. An intranet without these features will not last long and will fail over time.
A successful intranet must be in continuous improvement, and hand in hand with the needs of the users. All of this requires time and patience, but it gives great satisfaction.
In many cases, the Intranet can start with only some useful applications for users and with the passage of time and with improvements it can become, as Guenther (2003) mentions in one of his articles “… it is the most important productivity tool in the hands of the employees … ”.
As we can see, the well-managed Intranet can become a very powerful tool for companies. It is obvious that like any new project requires time and a very good knowledge of the users to whom it is focused.
Currently, there are still many companies that have not implemented this tool for the daily performance of their activities, but it should not take long for this to happen, since more and more are adding to the benefits and those who do not will be lagging one step behind in terms of technology.
But it is not only about implementing technology and now, we must remember that like everything else, it needs updates and maintenance, since technologies are always in motion and continuous improvement and not following the step would push us to be obsolete, making our tool successful. initially in a tool that stagnates us in the past and does not allow the company to develop properly and successfully.
Bibliography
Wagner, William P., Chung, QB, Baratz, Todd. (2002). Implementing corporate intranets: lessons learned from two high-tech firms. Industrial Management & Data Systems. pp. 140-145.
Blanc, Gerard. The intranet: first, answer the questions. (Technology Information).
Guenther, Kim. (Jan / Feb 2003). Take steps to intranet success. On-line. P. 66.
McGovern, Gerry. Intranet communication versus traditional communication. November 25, 2002.
Weaver, Beth. (Jun 2003). Corporate intranet paving the way. Hoosier Banker. P. 26.
