Book contents
- Frontmatter
- dedication
- Contents
- Foreword James Robertson
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part 1 Foundations
- Part 2 Technology
- Part 3 Operational planning
- Part 4 Governance and strategy
- 16 Creating the governance framework
- 17 Developing an intranet strategy
- 18 From intranets to information management
- Appendix: Guidelines for social media use
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
17 - Developing an intranet strategy
from Part 4 - Governance and strategy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- dedication
- Contents
- Foreword James Robertson
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part 1 Foundations
- Part 2 Technology
- Part 3 Operational planning
- Part 4 Governance and strategy
- 16 Creating the governance framework
- 17 Developing an intranet strategy
- 18 From intranets to information management
- Appendix: Guidelines for social media use
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
Introduction
In Chapter 3 some of the considerations that need to be taken into account in writing a business plan for an intranet were set out, but the focus was on a tactical plan to be supported from the organization over perhaps the next financial year. Chapter 7, on selecting intranet CMS and search software, highlighted the potential need for a two-year perspective on funding the deployment of new software. This chapter takes an even longer-term view and looks at the benefits and challenges of preparing a two- or three-year strategy for an intranet.
Even quite large intranets may not be operating within a strategic plan, and yet employees rely every working day on information accessed from the intranet. Even if an individual employee has not accessed the intranet, their work for the day may well have been defined by a manager or a colleague who has done so. In most organizations, in terms of both the quantity and essential nature of the information, the intranet will have grown invisibly over its life, which may well stretch over many years. Now, the intranet and the organization have reached a tipping point.
The current economic situation means that:
• staff are being made redundant and walking out of the door with invaluable knowledge about the organization
• staff who remain may well have to expand the scope of their work to accommodate the redundancies, and so have to access and trust information that they are not familiar with
• past business performance is no longer an indicator of the future, and new approaches will be needed so as to maintain and enhance customer relationships
• where new members of staff are hired, they will need to come up to speed and make a significant contribution to the organization as quickly as possible
• investment in IT applications will be under intense scrutiny.
All these factors play on the strengths of an intranet, which, compared with most IT applications, requires little investment in hardware, software or development. Intranet managers will be faced with some challenging decisions in determining how best to prioritize development plans.
One of the complications that besets intranet investment decisions is that the intranet is owned by a department – usually internal communications, IT or HR – on behalf of the organization, but that department has to maintain the intranet within its own departmental budget.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Intranet Management Handbook , pp. 199 - 206Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2011