As businesses grow and evolve, so do their IT systems.
Over time, organisations often find themselves managing a complex web of disparate legacy systems, each serving a specific function but lacking integration with one another.
This can lead to inefficiencies, higher costs, and increased risk, as the organisation struggles to manage and secure multiple systems.
Consolidating these systems can offer a solution to these issues. By streamlining software applications into a single, centralised platform, organisations can reduce costs, improve efficiency, enhance security and significantly improve business value.
And one of the most effective tools for consolidating systems is the intranet. The ROI of an intranet can be surprising.
In this blog, we’ll explore how you can use your intranet to consolidate systems and realise the benefits of cost savings, reduced risk, and improved processes.
We’ll start by examining the benefits of consolidating systems and then move on to how an intranet can serve as the backbone of this consolidation.
Why consolidate your systems
Consolidating systems with an intranet helps organisations operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and improve employee collaboration and communication.
- Reduced costs: Consolidating systems with an intranet can help to reduce costs associated with managing and maintaining multiple systems. By using fewer platforms, you can save money on licensing fees, hardware costs, and maintenance expenses.
- Improved security: An intranet can be more secure than relying on multiple systems as it provides a single point of entry that can be more easily monitored and controlled. It is easier to remember and faster to action upgrades, patches and so on with one system over several systems.
- Improved processes: An intranet centralises information and acts as a hub for storing and organising information, making it easier for employees to find the information they need. It can help streamline business processes and reduce the time and resources required to complete tasks such as new IT hardware requests, travel expenses, annual leave requests and so on.
An intranet can provide access to various tools and applications that employees need to complete tasks, such as project management tools, document management systems, and collaboration tools. This can help streamline and improve processes by providing employees with easy access to the tools they need to complete tasks.
What systems can you consolidate with an intranet?
Here are the key ways you can consolidate systems, data and applications:
Document management
Thousands and thousands of documents flow through organisations, from policies and procedures to templates and guidelines. To make things easier for your employees, you need a solid document management system in place that ensures documents are organised, secure, and easily accessible.
It creates an organisational structure, which makes it easier for everyone to find what they need. It also provides security features to protect confidential information and enables collaboration without the risk of data loss.
An intranet will have all the key functionality of a good document management system:
- Version control
- Check in and out features
- Document descriptions
- Document metatags
- Review date notifications
- Expiry date notifications
- Security permissions
- Advanced search capability including searching for keywords
- Integration to third party systems
Beyond this, having document management capabilities within your intranet enables you to provide more context. For example, work from home documents can be found within the work from home section on your intranet, alongside key contact details, online forms, FAQs, the latest relevant news etc.
Knowledge management
According to Gartner, knowledge management “is a business process that formalises the management and use of an enterprise’s intellectual assets. Knowledge management promotes a collaborative and integrative approach to the creation, capture, organisation, access and use of information assets, including the tacit, uncaptured knowledge of people.”
Intranets can be a powerful tool for supporting knowledge management within organisations.
The intranet serves as a single access point for all knowledge and information within the organisation, including policies, procedures, training materials, and other important documents. You want to ensure employees can find information as quickly as possible and get back to their jobs fast.
Similarly, to a document management system, an intranet will have all the key functionality of a good knowledge management system:
- Version control
- Check in and out features
- Document descriptions
- Document metatags
- Review date notifications
- Expiry date notifications
- Security permissions
- Advanced search capability including searching for keywords
- Integration to third party systems
Beyond a standalone knowledge management system, intranets offer additional tools such as:
- Interactive/social Q&A section, so employees can comment, ask questions, answer questions and share best practices.
- Collaboration and community spaces for employees to share information, ideas, and knowledge.
- Organisation chat and corporate directory so staff know exactly who to ask for information.
Learning management system
With the rise of hybrid working arrangements and employees working from different locations, including the office, home, or other remote locations, it can be harder to deliver in person training.
A learning management system (LMS) enables to access educational content anytime and anywhere, if they have an internet connection.
It allows remote workers to work at their own pace and on their own schedule, ensuring they stay up to date with the latest training.
An intranet will have all the key functionality of a good LMS:
- Course management: creating, managing, and delivering e-learning courses and training programs.
- Content management: storing and managing all types of educational content, including videos, documents, presentations, and quizzes.
- User management: enabling administrators to manage user accounts, assign roles, and track user progress.
- Tracking and reporting: providing detailed analytics and reporting on user progress, course completion, and other metrics.
Better yet, with an intranet you can create a whole training and development section or an onboarding hub with additional resources for staff to access.
An LMS is essential in a hybrid workforce as it helps to ensure that all employees, regardless of their location, have access to high-quality educational content and training programs, and receive the support they need to succeed in their roles.
Events management
An intranet can also be used for managing internal events and activities for employees within an organisation. An intranet with an in-built event management system (EMS) streamlines the event planning process, reducing the time and effort required to plan and organise events.
This helps to enhance employee engagement by providing a range of internal events and activities that promote team building, skill development, and social interaction.
An intranet will have all the key functionality of a good EMS:
- Event creation and management: providing tools for creating and managing internal events, such as training sessions, team-building activities, and social events.
- Registration and attendance tracking: enabling employees to register for events and tracks attendance, ensuring that events are well attended and resources are effectively utilised.
- Communication and collaboration: including tools for event communication and collaboration, such as discussion forums, chat rooms, and video conferencing.
- Customisation: can be customised to meet the specific needs of different departments, teams, and employees, providing tailored event management solutions.
- Analytics and reporting: providing detailed analytics and reporting on event attendance, engagement, and other key metrics, enabling organisers to improve future events.
Forms and workflows
An online forms and workflow automation tool provides businesses with a cost-effective and time-saving solution to digitise their form-based processes and automate workflows.
An online forms and workflow automation tool saves time by reducing manual data entry and automating repetitive tasks, allowing users to focus on more strategic activities.
By improving accuracy and streamlining processes, businesses can enhance productivity, reduce the risk of manual errors, and provide a better customer experience.
An intranet will have all the key functionality of a good forms and workflow solution:
- Form creation and customisation: Creating and customising digital forms with ease, enabling businesses to collect and store data electronically, saving time and reducing the risk of manual errors.
- Workflow design and automation: Designing and automating workflows based on form submissions, streamlining processes and improving productivity.
- Conditional logic: Creating dynamic forms that adjust based on user responses, improving accuracy and ensuring that businesses get the information they need.
- Integrations: Integrating with other business applications, such as CRMs and project management software, enhancing collaboration and improving data sharing.
Additionally, intranets that incorporate forms and workflow tools enable you to use structured authoring to create, manage, and publish structured content efficiently.
Structured authoring allows you to create a form using a simple drag-and-drop form creator. Once the form is submitted, the article is published using a template, using the values entered into the form. Before publication, the content is reviewed and approved by a manager or administrator.
Structured authoring is an incredibly effective way to automate content creation for a range of business processes. By providing users with a structured form to enter information, you can significantly reduce errors and enable more people to participate in the content creation process. This approach not only speeds up content creation but also maintains quality controls such as workflow and publishing.
Portals
A modern web CMS portal will enable detailed content personalisation for all end users, whether they be employees, contractors, students, parents, members, customers, dealers, suppliers, board members or any other stakeholder.
You can build secure and personalised information and content hubs for internal and external stakeholders, integrated to your existing business systems and tools.
An intranet will have all the key functionality of a good web portal solution:
- Single access point: providing a single access point for users to access a range of information, services, and applications, improving convenience and efficiency.
- Customisation: using security permissions to tailor the content to specific users within each stakeholder group to meet the specific needs of a business or organisation, improving the user experience and increasing engagement.
- Integration: integration with other business systems and applications, enabling seamless access to important data and services.
- Security: designed with robust security features, protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorised access.
Website
The beauty of a web CMS is at its core, it enables you to manage and deliver content online, and that can take many different forms.
Managing your website and intranet on one platform can be a powerful way to improve efficiency and streamline operations. Rather than managing two separate systems with different user interfaces and maintenance requirements, you can manage both your external website and internal intranet on a single platform.
Here are some benefits of managing your website and intranet on one platform:
- Consistent user experience: You can ensure a consistent user experience for both internal and external users. This can help to build trust and brand recognition.
- Simplified maintenance: With one platform, you only need to manage one set of maintenance tasks, such as updates, backups, and security patches. This can save time and reduce the risk of errors.
- Cost savings: Managing your website and intranet on one platform can help you to reduce costs, such as licensing fees, hardware, and staff time. This can free up resources for other strategic initiatives.
- Enhanced security: You can implement consistent security policies and procedures for both your website and intranet. This can help to reduce the risk of security breaches and data leaks.
Next steps
Consolidating systems with an intranet can help businesses to streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their operations.
Do you currently have to ‘make do’ with your legacy intranet and/or processes and systems even though you know it’s not meeting your employee’s needs?
This guide delves into how intranets can drive significant business benefits and cost savings. Want to calculate how much your organisation can save with an intranet? Check out our intranet ROI calculator.
