The static one-way communication vehicle of the standard corporate intranet can’t keep up with today’s business world.
The reality of the business landscape has changed—emails boxes are overfilled, travel budgets have been cut in favor of virtual meetings and many companies are experiencing information overload.
The social intranet is one way companies can address their current needs. Read on, to learn the top benefits of a social intranet.
1. Improving knowledge management
When people are collaborating over the phone, having email conversations or meeting in person to create a work product, much of the information going into that process won’t be documented in a way that allows others to reuse it. Often times, even if notes are taken they are not shared in any way.
A social intranet helps to capture that knowledge in ways that facilitate current and future collaborative tasks. Conversations that used to only benefit those directly involved, can now be recorded in a searchable thread. The result is increased transparency and an efficient way to draw on the experience of the larger team.
2. Supporting collaboration
Social capabilities are helpful in project and team collaboration, where you have smaller groups of people working toward a common goal, often for a relatively short period of time. A social intranet helps team members share ideas and communicate in a transparent, streamlined fashion. And a social intranet helps you tap into ideas from people who wouldn’t have input in the process.
3. Maximizing efficiency
One of the main ways a social intranet helps to reduce costs is by reclaiming employee time. When employees are working on projects, a social intranet helps them get feedback more quickly, which improves efficiency and maintains momentum. They don’t have to stop what they’re doing and wait for a meeting to align everyone working on the project. That efficiency and time savings results in faster turnaround for projects and project development.
4. Controlling costs
A social intranet offers a variety of cost-savings opportunities. Those include:
- Reclaiming employee time
- Reduction in travel expenses mentioned
- Simplify the e-discovery process in the event of an audit
- Reduce costs for storing email and attachments
5. Reducing risk
The question is, if you’re not providing a social intranet, what other tools are people using to accomplish some of those functions?
Tech-savvy users may find their own solutions, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. The problem with these unauthorized third-party solutions is that IT doesn’t have control over those systems, which could expose the company to risks. If your company’s intellectual property or sensitive data is being held in a consumer application with a weak password, that’s a huge risk.
Final Thought
A social intranet offers a variety of benefits, from improving transparency and content findability to supporting collaboration and increasing efficiency. Many organizations also find them useful in controlling costs, especially in regard to travel expenses.
To make the most of the potential benefits for your organization the first step is to determine what business goals a social intranet will need to achieve. Once goals are clearly outlined you can determine what available tools are best suited to achieving those results.
Want to learn more about how to improve transparency and content findability, increase efficiency and control costs? Download our white paper, How To Build A Social Intranet That Boosts Workplace Collaboration And Employee Engagement.
