Intranets - They're Not Just for Big Businesses

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According to a 2001 study by Modalis Research Technologies, 70 percent of small and medium-sized U.S. businesses feel that an intranet is important for communicating with employees. However, 49% of those respondents indicated that they would rather have an intranet run and created by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or by a Web hosting company. This general mentality has created a new breed of ASP's - those who are ready, willing and able to host intranets of all sizes - for businesses of all sizes.

Creating an intranet can be a daunting task. According to Karen Leavitt, Vice President of Marketing for Intranets.com, a provider of Web-based Intranets, "The benefits that have made intranets compelling for large global enterprises have begun to be realized by smaller businesses as well. But these smaller companies lack the in-house IT staff that a large enterprise usually assigns to an intranet project. One way to simplify the process is to subscribe to a hosted intranet service, that offers a complete suite of essential intranet applications for collaborative work."

Getting Started
Subscribing to a hosted service makes the process much simpler. All that's needed is a computer with Internet access and a web browser - there's no special software to download and install - and setup time is just about 30 minutes.

"It's true," concurred Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., an Internet and Intranet User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, "There are many new tools for small and medium sized companies that wish to develop an intranet." Mr. Nielsen, who also authored the best-selling book Designing Web Usability: the Practice of Simplicity (2000), cautions, there is still some upfront work to be done. "First, you must define your intranet - adjusting your ambition to the size of your company. Next, the intranet should be structured according to the goals that your company needs to accomplish. Finally, remember, the intranet is a work tool, and it should be easy to use." He then outlined several steps for developing an intranet.

The 5 Step Plan for Developing a Hosted Intranet

Step 1: Conduct a needs analysis: collect information on what should be included in the intranet from all departments involved.

Step 2:  Develop a plan that includes input from all affected departments, but do not design by committee…rule with a firm hand, or the result will not be clearly defined.

Step 3: Create a prototype sketch on how the intranet should work – on paper!

Step 4:  Take the prototype back to the contributors and make sure it will work for them.

Step 5:  Now you’re ready to take your plan to a hosted intranet provider.

According to Dr. Nielsen, "A smaller company will have fewer resources, but it also has a more focused mission for its intranet and can more easily involve all parties in the design process to ensure usability. Much of the value of an intranet comes from making it a communications tool that all employees check every day. This can be a challenge. A common solution to this is to prominently feature a killer app that is so useful that people will voluntarily - and frequently - visit the intranet homepage."

In most cases, the employee search tool is the most important application. "We have also found that several companies used a daily lunch menu as their killer app!" he continued, "No matter what you pick, pay special attention to your killer app's usability. Many employees will use it, so any weakness will cost your company big bucks in lost productivity."

"The theory that intranets are not just for big businesses is supported by our research," said Dr. Nielsen. Each year, his firm hosts the Nielsen Norman Group's Intranet Design Annual Award, a competition that challenges a panel of judges to select ten finalists from among the thousands of submissions entered. The criteria are usability and bottom line - how easy does the intranet make it for users, and how does it make the user feel? This year, two of the ten winners were small companies: Lonely Planet Publications, with 450 users, and Mira Networks, with only twelve employees.

Lonely Planet Publications, the world's leading independent travel publisher, is headquartered in Australia, but operates branches in the U.S., France and the U.K. Its 50,000 page intranet improves communication and enables document sharing across borders. The intranet at Mira Networks AB, located in Scandinavia, received special recognition for its ability to integrate mobile text messages, enabling employees to update the intranet from their mobile phones. (To find out more about the Nielsen Norman Group's Design Annuals for 2001 and 2002, visit www.useit.com.)

"The competition is very useful for a number of reasons," concluded Dr. Nielsen. "Because many intranets are pieced together, suffer from resource and budget issues, and are developed by many different groups with different design ideas, they often have the effect of frustrating users and wasting precious work hours in fruitless searches for information. Intranet developers can use this report to learn by example."

Hosted Providers Speak Up
That is exactly the point of hosted solution providers, such as Intranets.com, Infostreet, IntraSmart, and Intranet Factory. Intranets.com, which boasts 125,000 users in 6,000 companies says, "The strategy of building on a hosted solution frees the company, and its IT staff or champion, from the laborious process of creating basic intranet applications from scratch. It also allows all of its intranet resources to be focused on sharing essential content. Moreover, the initial start-up cost is low. By getting a basic intranet up and running, the company can put essential business tools in the hands of employees quickly, so they can begin to realize the benefits of the intranet. Once set up, the company can then customize the intranet and add the basic content such as employee lists, presentations and documents."