Intranets - They're Not Just for Big Businesses

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The average Intranet.com customer has 21 users. "Our sweet spot," said Karen Leavitt, is companies with 5-100 employees." Those can be broken down into several usage segments:

• Traditional corporate intranets - for accessing an employee directory, posting announcements and results information, and contact data.
• Departmental intranets - to permit employees in one department - often a geographically dispersed department such as a sales organization - to share essential information, and keep everyone on the same page.
• Extranets - for communicating with customers, or privately providing deliverables, such as graphics, to clients who are given access to the site.
• Project Teams - while Intranets.com focuses on small to medium sized companies, some of their clients are project teams from Fortune 500 companies who need a temporary vehicle for exchanging information. "This happens," explained Ms. Leavitt, "because the IT teams within these corporate structures often have their own resources planned out, or their system may not be able to address these issues outside of their firewall."

Creating an intranet at Intranets.com takes about 30 minutes and can cost as little as $49.95/month for up to 5 users, and $9.95 for each additional user," continued Ms. Leavitt. "The result is a private, secure network that can be accessed worldwide. Accessibility is critical, since a large portion of companies with less fewer than 50 employees have multiple offices in geographically dispersed locations." Many of the other hosted intranet providers have similar licensing models and prices.

Using a hosted service isn't just about buying somewhere to house your intranet. It also gives you access to a great number of features that you might otherwise need to pay for or develop yourself. Many of the hosted intranet providers will give all (or at the least most) of the following features:

• Document storage,
• Announcement posting,
• Links to websites,
• Shared calendars,
• Expense reports,
• Database applications,
• Brainstorming capabilities, and
• Threaded discussion hosting.

And, on top of that, here's what you don't need to worry about if you get a hosted service:

• No need to buy servers.
• No additional fee for security (though you should satisfy yourself that the provider is taking the security of your intranet very seriously indeed).
• No need to hire additional, expensive, technical support personnel.
• No worries about backup it's automatic (again, make sure of this).
• No need to create new features, since upgrades are included.

Some hosted intranet providers also give advanced features that customers are unlikely to have the expertise for in house. For examples, Intranets.com customers can create applications using the integrated database systems. Included with the database application are a CRM, Asset Management, Timesheet, and Problem Tracking template, and Intranets.com is creating more all the time. Users can easily develop their own applications from scratch as well if they have the time, money, and desire to do so.

The Intranet Factory, an Application Service Provider (ASP), also provides clients with a hosted, private Intranet facilities. However, their target market, according to CEO Keith Henning, is a little more upmarket than Intranets.com, often divisions of Fortune 1000 companies.

Henning has extensive experience in the intranet field, having helped develop Dell Computer Corporation's corporate intranet. His partner, Joe Hinder, is also the President of the Houston Usability Professional Association. The two decided to combine their intranet and usability experience to create RepeatWeb, which helps company's track and measure usage on their intranets, extranets and Internet sites.

The two extracted lessons learned about usability from focus groups for that currently successful venture to launch hosted intranets through the Intranet Factory. As with Intanets.com, set-up is easy, quick, and costs as little as $5/user. "The hosted model is such a powerful one - it lends itself to economies of scale very easily. There are no IT costs," said Mr. Henning, "and we offer industry standard security, 24x7 monitoring, a redundant architecture, and the 30 most common applications by default. You can have your intranet up within 10 minutes, with your logo, choice of colors and features, and a custom URL."

Components of the standard intranet include an Administration Page, Personal Page, Job Tools, Company Tools and e-Tools. Customers get all these by default, but can "unselect" the ones they do not want, helping to simplify maintenance. There are a number of popular features. The Shared Calendar function within the Intranet Factory offering enables any number of groups of people to follow discussion threads and calendars specific to their department or group. In addition, a feature is included that replaces the traditional "pink phone message pad," providing the ability to automatically load messages onto the Intranet for anyone in the company.

"Perhaps the greatest feature," continued Henning, "is the administration. A lot of companies have intranets. Usually, administration of the intranet is so complicated, but with our product, it's intuitive. There are numerous defaults, and abundant help information. It's self-managing - users can easily provide and manage the content themselves." Features like these are sure to score big with small companies, many of whom do not have a dedicated technical support staff.

Why Shouldn't I Subscribe to a Hosted Service?
Of course, as with everything else in IT, there are some drawbacks to hosted intranets. Or are there? When asked what the drawbacks to hosted services were, Karen Leavitt responded, "There really are no drawbacks, but the main problem is that this course of action may not have occurred to someone before, and they're not sure what to expect. They may feel that signing up over the web is an anonymous experience. But, when they start to deal with us at Intranets.com, they soon reach a comfort level."

Intranets.com and the Intranet Factory both offer a free 30-day trial. "We won't pester you when you sign up for the trial," assured Ms. Leavitt, "but we will get in touch to see if you need help."

What Are the Options?
In spite of all the apparent benefits of hosted services, some customers still don't sign on. "We ask our prospects why they don't go with us when we lose the sale. Most frequently, there are two responses: they decided to do it themselves, or they plan to wait and do nothing. Those are our two biggest competitors," noted Ms. Leavitt. "Eventually, these companies realize that it's far more cost-effective to allow intranet experts to host a solution for you rather than building it yourself. As for doing nothing, in organizations in which resources are limited, that may be the costliest approach - $9.95 is a small price to pay for increased employee productivity."

"Whatever path you choose," cautioned Dr. Nielsen, "many intranets suffer from a fragmented design, and the resulting loss of usability as users are confronted with different rules at every click." You must avoid this. John S. Rhodes, whose web site is also dedicated to usability, agrees, "Data indicates that usability offers a better ROI than almost any other business activity. When times get tough, usability shines."