Barely known one year ago, Intranets are sprouting throughout
corporate America, transforming the employee communications function.
The internal-access-only Internet sites quickly are on their way to
becoming the primary channel for employee communications.
In the process, Intranets are expanding the scope of the employee
communications activities at major corporations and are leading to
less use of printed documents, according to a study released today,
co-sponsored by consulting firm Cognitive Communications Inc.,
Stamford, Conn., and The Document Company Xerox.
Key findings:
* 85 percent of survey respondents currently are planning, are
installing or have installed an Intranet;
* Respondents say that use of documents printed on paper today are
used 52 percent "of the time," but will be used only 29 percent "of
the time" three years from now; and
* Communicators report that the speed and ubiquity of electronic
communication--particularly e-mail and Intranets--are speeding up
decisions, shortening communications cycles and reducing costs.
The survey, conducted this spring, was mailed to 731 corporate
communicators, mostly at Fortune 500 companies. About 25 percent--165
communicators--responded.
Links, Competition With IS
The growth of Intranets is creating an opportunity for corporate
and employee communication departments to cooperate, or in some cases,
compete with IS (information systems) departments.
More than half of the respondents to this survey said their
departments had reached out to establish "formal" ties with their
companies' IS departments--recognizing that while strategy and content
of Intranets may be within their purview, the technical know-how, and
budgets for Intranets--probably reside with IS departments.
Nonetheless, Susan Wiener, partner at Cognitive, believes that
communicators are not enough in the vanguard guiding implementation of
Intranets. Aside from closing communicators out of an exciting
development, she believes that Intranets developed and managed only by
technologists will fail to exploit the ability of these internal Web
sites to transform intra-corporate structures and interactions.
The inherent power of Intranets to facilitate feedback from
audiences is being widely used, the survey suggests.
In fact, 81 percent of respondents report using Intranets for this
purpose, a higher percentage than those who reported using Intranets
for delivering existing employee communications materials and
publications.
Some organizations, however, are resisting the move to build
feedback mechanisms into their sites, out of concern for receiving an
overwhelming number of responses, which they are not staffed to
handle, says Wiener.
Costs to create an Intranet site are essentially the same as for
creating an Internet site, and thus can range from as little as few
thousand dollars to more than $100,000, depending on the size and
sophistication of the site.
A copy of the 26-page report can be ordered for $150 by calling
Cognitive Communications at 203/328-3080.
Why Corporations Are Creating Intranets
Cognitive Communications Inc., research says there are four
reasons why corporations are creating Intranets:
+"To create a knowledge base or repository of information;
+ To develop online communities;
+ To improve work flows (through sites' database capabilities); and
+ To help shape employee thinking about their companies.