With all of the hype surrounding intranets, the latest corporate communications darling, it's easy to be wooed by the technology instead of understanding the real value it can bring to your company's communications bottom line. As many companies are finding out, intranets are definitely becoming a force to be reckoned with. Ninety percent of Fortune 200 companies have intranets or will deploy them in 1997, according to New York-based Hambrecht & Quist. But how should your company embrace the technology?
"It's better to crawl -walk -run then leap when creating a corporate intranet system," advised Kym Giese, of the organizational communication practice of Washington, D.C., consulting office of Towers Perrin.
Selling to Upper Management
For corporate communicators, the intranet is a powerful ally. But recruiting soldiers from upper management types, who may be having assistants print out their e-mails, requires a unique brand of finesse and negotiation-savvy. Although many assume that intranets sell themselves, pointing out to your boss that these systems can bring him or her instant employee exposure (video messages), a progressive communications image as well as cost-savings, certainly can't hurt.
This is where corporate communicators can tap into their well-rounded knowledge base of a company to make things happen, according to Giese, who contends, "You should know your corporation better than anyone." By looking at the key initiatives of shareholders and the board of directors, what the CEO is talking about, as well as surveying the communications needs of your employees, Giese says that you should be able to frame some basic needs. Should an intranet be introduced as a pure cost-savings option or will it be used as a high-visibility vehicle? Will the intranet replace some, most or all of your in-house printed materials? By answering these basic questions, chances are you won't get ahead of yourself before going to the next level.
Assembling the Right Players
For as many intranet systems that are emerging (about 20 to 30), there are as many, if not more, intranet consulting groups popping up to hold your hands and guide you through the ever-evolving intranet maze. Companies like Towers Perrin, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intranet Partners (IP), and Bellevue, Wash.-based Elekom Corp., are primed and ready to intra-connect companies. But what is more essential is having the right client-side team in place. From the outset, companies need to assemble an IT (technology) representative, an HR representative which, depending on the company, may also be the corporate communications person, and a key managerial decision-maker (preferably one who "champions" the intranet cause).
Once the appropriate client-side group is formed, intranet consultants can do what they do best: design and implement a customized communications system for your company. Depending on the number of users, and how interactive the system is, intranets can range anywhere from $50,000 to the high six figures to set up and maintain, according to intranet-consulting experts.
Getting Intra-Connected
When evaluating intranets, Steve Telleen, IP's director of strategy, says that companies should look at them as an infrastructure much like a phone system. He emphasizes that intranets are capable of more than just formal or finished communications like memos, press releases, and company directories and should be viewed as more of a collaborative tool that allows for changes in-progress. Tips like these are fired off in IP's recently issued "Top 10 Rules for Deploying Intranet Solutions," (http://ip.com).
Two years ago, when Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox surveyed its employees to gauge their communications needs, the response was unanimous: they wanted relevant, timely information. Since Xerox's main communications objective is to "democratize" information, its corporate environment was ripe for intranet technology. An intranet-like system was already in place at Xerox through a number of proprietary intra-company electronic communications systems.
"Intranets allowed us to put information out to all [80,000] employees, where [the previous system] was only available to a few departments," said Cynthia Casselman, manager of strategic communications and intranet development.
Xerox's intranet allows employees to perform administrative tasks like ordering business cards and requesting benefits information, and work groups can build their own Web sites to share department-specific information. In fact, a 300 person-staffed "Office of the Intranet" was created solely to field employee inquiries, develop guidelines, upgrade the systems, and work closely with corporate communications on viable content. Members of corporate communications and PR meet every day to generate daily intranet headlines on the company/competition that are disseminated to the appropriate departments.
Since Xerox frequently updates its systems (which rings in at six figures annually), the design team only supports products that use open standards like Intel-based Internet Explorer and Unix-based Netscape Navigator. "Intranet technology is evolving as we speak, we have to make sure that we use systems that are flexible and open-ended," said Dave Woodruff, Xerox's program manager of intranet services. Woodruff also advises using electronic authoring applications that provide user-friendly editing features that employees can be easily trained on.
PR-Targeted Intranets
For Basking Ridge, N.J.-based AT&T, the next intranet mission is "Promo" which targets its PR professionals. Still in its infancy stages, Promo will initially communicate to 42 users throughout AT&T's domestic offices and Europe and will first target media relations and corporate communications, then eventually speechwriting groups and other communications groups. Through Promo, PR staff will get instantaneous reference library information like opinion research, PR directories, executive bios and media happenings as well as links to newspapers and magazines. This effort will evolve with PR's targeted input, according to Patricia Swortz, AT&T's public relations director of media relations operations.
The pilot, which will be launched this spring, will be tested for three to six weeks, and barring any significant system changes, will be rolled out globally. "We are looking at a number of systems that will allow us to develop customized Web sites and link up to our PR groups around the world. The project has amazing potential from a communications stand- point," said Swortz, who could not confirm expenditures because systems and applications are still under review. (Towers Perrin, Kym Giese, 703/351-4700; Intranet Partners, Paul Wheaton, 408/588-1100 ext. 510; Xerox, Cynthia Casselman, 203/968-4377; AT&T, Patricia Swortz, 908/221-8475)