8 crucial considerations for intranet software

A streamlined intranet that employees love (and actually use) is a priceless gift that keeps on giving.

If you have a well-organized, finely-tuned messaging hub that serves as a one-stop shop for essential business information, your productivity, engagement and collaboration rates stand to soar. You’ll communicate more clearly, and you’ll avoid the confusion that so often plagues companies unwilling to invest in employee communication.

But where do you start?

Simpplr has a new guide that can help you make the most of your intranet investment. The free guide will help you solidify your business case to execs, bring your internal stakeholders together and evaluate the current intranet technology market. The piece will help you clarify the problems you’ll be empowered to solve with a new intranet—and equip you with common justifications for new tech, such as:

• “We simply need to modernize our intranet technology.”
• “Our workforce is distributed. Employees aren’t equally engaged. Even more so since COVID-19.”
• “We need a single source of truth.”
• “We’ve had a recent merger and need to create a common community.”
• “We’re going through a digital transformation and need to enable employees.”
• “We’re experiencing hyper growth and lack systems and processes.”
• “The Millennials are coming, and they expect better technology, more transparency and collaborative work environments.”
• “Experience is the new brand, and the intranet affects how we attract and retain talent.”
• “We’d like to reduce internal support tickets.”

Steps to success

Simpplr research finds that the top reasons employee intranets fail are attributed to unclear ownership, poor processes and lack of governance. To prevent these common problems, Simpplr shares eight steps every business should take before settling on new software:

Step 1: Make a sound business case and clarify the problems you’re solving.

Step 2: Understand why intranets fail—and plan how you’ll mitigate risk.

Step 3: Form a cross-functional evaluation team.

Step 4: Make a very important decision: old way or new way.

Step 5: Use a checklist to perform a rigorous vendor evaluation.

Step 7: Seek social proof.

Step 8: Define and score your criteria.

In addition to helping you avoid common intranet pitfalls and headaches, Simpplr also offers two evaluation tools to help you make a wise choice that fits your company’s unique specifications:

• A vendor scorecard to help your team add structure to your evaluation.
• An intranet request for proposal (RFP) template to save you time should your organization require an RFP process.

Perhaps most importantly, Simpplr shares a reminder about the importance of finding an “executive sponsor,” noting that, “Your best bet is to find the leaders who naturally understand the importance of communications, culture and engagement. Start with them and show them how a new approach will make it much easier for them to get their messages across.” Having a C-suite champion on your side—who can help pull purse strings and facilitate adoption of new tech and processes—is essential for success.

If you’d like more insights on how to find an intranet that’s right for you and your employees, download Simpplr’s “2021 Intranet Buyer’s Guide” today.