When we interviewed Andy Hodges, Director of Thinkshare and an expert in SharePoint intranet, he had a telling insight into the value it holds for complex, hybrid organizations.
Increasingly, when leaders in technology and internal communications are faced with strategic problems – be it low engagement, poor productivity or ‘information chaos’ – many already know that an intranet is the tool that will solve them.
However, they don’t often know just what an intranet is capable of, and less so, how to choose the right one in among several options.
If that sounds like the position you are in, then read on to learn what you should expect from your SharePoint intranet: and the value-driving philosophy that underpins LiveTiles’ modern intranet.
Fact 1: Intranet focuses on what organizations want employees to know, and what individuals need to do their work.
You already know that your intranet should connect employees to the information, tools and resources – including other people – that let them do effective work.
What you may not know is just how vital it is that the experience be curated.
When 62% of employees in modern organizations reported to Microsoft that they struggled with the amount of information they received in a workday, protecting them from being overwhelmed is vital in the fight to reclaim productivity.
It’s not enough for an intranet to simply target employees based on region, role and function.
Your internal communications team needs intranet analytics that measure engagement with communications to ensure your content reaches the right people, policies are read, and minimal resource is wasted on ineffective comms.
It’s just one result of having an intranet that puts personalization first.
Fact 2: An intranet for everyone is an intranet for no-one
You may know from experience that one of the most challenging parts of adopting any new technology is the change management aspect.
What you will already know is that for an intranet to deliver all the benefits it promises, wide-scale adoption is needed.
That might be one reason why you are looking at streamlining that transition by using a SharePoint-based intranet that extends your existing Microsoft ecosystem.
However, what you might not know is just how important personalization is.
A one-size-fits-all intranet that tries to deliver a single experience for everyone will end up pleasing no-one.
That is why modern intranets need to offer personalization. Not just in content curation, but from theming to relevant sub-brands within a major conglomerate, to simple opt-in/opt-out communications that lets employees control what information they are served.
It can be summed up like this: relevancy builds trust. Trust fuels adoption.
Fact 3: Intranet is your digital front door
You know that an intranet cannot replace every app that you have. But it should provide harmony in this area of information chaos.
In Fortune 500 companies, switching between apps can cost your teams 10% of their productive time in a week, simply from searching, switching and readjusting to new contexts.
It’s the equivalent of having 10 employees, and only 9 show up for work.
That is why an intranet has to be your signpost to every bit of relevant information: your digital front door.
While some intranets can provide a list of useful links on the front page, the best intranets are built on a company specific-knowledge base (based on the unique content and classifying methods of the organization), which can be searched by powerful, custom search experiences.
Fact 4: Intranet needs to go where employees are
Anytime, anywhere access to information isn’t a feature of a groundbreaking intranet. It’s an expectation of anyone with an internet connection.
And yet, when it comes to SharePoint intranet, many solutions are failing to offer the flexibility required by global, hybrid and mobile-first teams – for whom a single way of accessing intranet will not be universally relevant.
Mobile accessibility is a standard feature of a modern company intranet. But an ever-greater need for customization requires multilingual intranets that deliver real-time translation, as well as for SharePoint intranets to take advantage of Teams as a way to access it.
Greater flexibility, quick access and intuitive use is why 9 out of 10 LiveTiles customers implement intranet within Teams.
Fact 5: Intranet AI must drive value and ditch hype
Last of all, you are undoubtedly asking – or being asked – about where AI fits into your business strategy.
An AI assistant might be the logical answer. In fact, it’s already a feature of many intranets. However, a static widget, be it a CoPilot chatbot, or even a more advanced AI Engine-powered AI assistant as seen in LiveTiles’ Everywhere Widget, is beholden to an important rule that you already know:
Information in, information out.
Delivering relevant, trustworthy and useful responses to your users’ plain-language queries will transform how users interact with intranet and find information.
But, it is only as reliable as the knowledge base it is drawing from. That’s why a SharePoint intranet must give your admins the ability to index SharePoint-based policy pages and develop the capability of your AI assistant on the contents of your knowledge base.
Cutting through the hype, the opportunity for AI for business is immense. You can learn more about how our in-house AI engine is redefining its value here.
Make the most of your Microsoft investment
If you are one of the 1,000,000+ businesses globally that uses Microsoft 365, you will maximize the value of that investment by adding LiveTiles.
It is the highest-impact, lowest-risk way to make sense of the information already in your organization – and knit the fabric of your workplace.
If SharePoint intranet is your logical next step, just book a demo to understand why LiveTiles is your best choice.
