Summary: Intranet software has a lot of value for larger organizations who need an efficient method of communicating with thousands of staff. But what about smaller companies?

IC has customers which range in size, with head counts than from 50 staff to over 4000. Customers with less than 100 staff must be finding some value with our product because their average customer lifetime with us (so far) is for 6.5 years. As a smaller, but growing company, do you need an intranet software?

When should you invest in communication automation software?

• Department meetings are replacing company meetings, but not everyone is on the same page
• It’s taking longer to get new staff up and running, because current processes require knowing exactly what everyone else in the company does
• Documents are getting duplicated as they get passed between teams, and it’s no longer clear which is the correct version
• Staff intend to read company news emails, but due to more urgent items in their inboxes, never get around to it
• Your IT staff no longer have enough time to maintain the internal website that was thrown together to try and address communication issues

IC can help you address these problems

• Each department has its own site, which can be used to share information with the rest of the company
• New staff can either use Employee Directory to find the person they need to put a request through, or better yet, requests can be handled through an online form with approval workflows
• Centralized document repository becomes trusted source for getting the latest version of any document
• Company news is placed on the home page of the intranet, so staff don’t have to dig through emails when they have time to read company news
• Content on intranet software can be updated directly, without requiring having to go through IT

It’s true that implementing an intranet does require both an initial time and financial investment, but is easier to manage in the long term than multiple applications. As a practical example, here’s an outline of five site examples easily accessed from the drop down navigation that we at IC use on our own product.

1. Home Site

Our home site is where staff check-in to keep up with the latest news, as well as where they submit HR requests.

• Company KPIs: new customers and active current currents totals
• CEO blog
• News and Announcements
• Links to various forms
  • Time Off Request
  • Time Sheets
  • Expense Reimbursement
  • Employee Quarterly Plans
• Staff Vacation Calendar
• Room Booking Calendar
• Daily stand-up huddle questions
• Photo gallery from the latest company events

In addition to the home site, each department has their own site that they maintain themselves.

2. Sales Site

• Reports the monthly sales to the rest of the company on their home page
• Onboarding and training assets for new sales team members
• Repository of latest sales assets cleared for release

3. Marketing Site

• Share the calendar of marketing events with the rest of the company on their home page
• Repository of Marketing assets
• Links to the latest blog entries

4. Software Development Team Site

• Link to release schedule
• Links to test systems so other staff can try out the latest build
• Development resources such as technology inventory, and links to tools

5. Product Management Site

• Links to latest UX mockups
• List of customers in working groups / early release adoption
• Repository for all user story / design documents

As a growing company, it’s also nice to know your intranet software is future-proofed. These features might not be on your requirements list today, but it’s nice to know they are there when the time comes.

• Policy management: reminding policy owners that is due for review, getting staff to confirm they have read an updated policy or procedure
• Support Desk: centralizing all IT request through a form submission versus email
• Company Store: ordering of company-branded items

One of our key philosophies is that we don’t punish our smaller organizations for being successful.

Our website contains a huge amount of information regarding the features that have been added over 17 years of product development. It can give the impression that our product it not suitable for smaller organizations, but that’s not the case.

Rather than wade through all the different features, contact us and we’ll be help you out the best we can.