While corporate Intranets are all the rage in Fortune 500 companies, most companies are going beyond employee communications and are using them for daily work-related information.
"The majority of companies are now using it for work practices --moving, sharing information inside the company," said Michael Rudnick, a partner at Cognitive Communications in Stamford, Conn. "They are accessing data such as financial reports and marketing reports that have been stored in a mainframe and have been difficult to use."
Rudnick's firm last June released a study of 168 companies that use Intranets in June [PR NEWS, June 17, 1996, p.1].
Ironically, the results show that while Intranets were straying away from solely containing corporate communications content -- 45 percent of the companies surveyed said corporate communications executives managed their internal Web sites. Another 35 percent of the companies said information technology departments oversaw their Web sites.
Rudnick said one his clients, Federal Express Corp. [FDX] combined the best of both departments to form a customer technology department which has a cross-functional team of communications and information technology specialists.
Rudnick's firm has created Intranets for clients such as International Business Machines Corp. [IBM]
Intranet costs range according to what infrastructure is in existence at a company, such as the computer systems, servers, hardware and software. Costs for content depending on size and scope could range from $100,000 to $1.5 million.
Albeit the growth in corporate communications content such as company newsletters, chat rooms and company press releases have flattened since the early stages of Intranets, another application has begun to grow--human resources.
According to Cognitive Communications' survey, 30 percent of the content on Intranets is produced by employee communications, and 22 percent is generated by human resources departments. Rudnick predicts growth in HR usage.
More and more companies are using their Intranets for benefits information such as health plans, 401(K) information, corporate stock information.
For example, employees at EDS Corp. [EDS] an information technology firm in Plano, Texas, see how much they have invested in their 401(K), fill out an expense report, get phone numbers of all their colleagues and even apply for a bonus through the company's Intranet.
"Our Intranet allows people to pull information from the site instead of us pushing information on them," said Mary Lewis, manger of corporate communications at EDS. "What's so great about it is that they can choose the information they find most valuable."
Corporate communications executives at Perot Systems, a computer support systems company founded by presidential candidate Ross Perot in Dallas, echoed Lewis. Although the department has been producing an e-mail newsletter for several years, it is now creating an Intranet version. Its current Intranet has a human resources component, department specific chat rooms, legal section and even a company store where employees can purchase logo merchandise.
"The Web allows you infinite space and graphics capabilities," said Heather Waldrop of Perot System's internal communications department. "It allows you to present things in a more interactive fashion and therefore gives you a wider audience."
While corporate communications departments in high-tech firms are basking in the Intranet sun, manufacturing company executives are working to ctch up, said Dave Bicofsky, an employee communications consultant from Teaneck, N.J.
"At manufacturing firms, a majority of the workers do not have access to computers or the Intranet," he said. "You will still have to communicate with them through traditional methods [like mail and fax]."
Communicators at Texas Instruments [TI] in Dallas, are feeling those growing pains as they try to beef up their Intranet system. The company has been online since the 1970s but has not started using interactive Web technology until recently. About 30 percent of the company has access to the Intranet.
"The Intranet works great for our technologists and our field operation employees," said Kerry Miller, manager of internal communications at TI. "It's for the rest of our employees that we are looking for an application."
However, corporate employees at the Houston office found an innovative use for a program they created on their Intranet for factory workers. The communications specialists broadcast graphic slides of the workers' yield ratios through a closed circuit television set.
"We have found that when employees know about their daily or weekly yield ratios, it improves their productivity and makes them feel that what they do affects the company," said Miller.
(Cognitive, 203/328-3080; EDS, 972/605-6807; Bicofsky, 201/907-0807; Perot Systems, 972/383-5664; Texas Instruments, 972/917-3834)