In CompanyNet’s 20th anniversary year, we take our first look back at the origins of a two-decade success story.

Kevin Grainger and Neil Francis, founders of CompanyNet, pictured in 1996.

A whole new world

The year was 1996, and the internet was very, very new. It’s hard to overstate the spectacular growth of the internet since 1996. Suffice it to say that fewer than nine per cent of households were online in 1996, compared with nearly 90 per cent today. For businesses, the figure was almost identical. This was the world in which our founders, Neil Francis and Kevin Grainger, saw an opportunity.

An early piece of market research among the company’s founding documents was very prescient. It said: “There are 3.5 million small- and medium-sized businesses in the UK, 3 million of which are not on the internet. The internet offers businesses a wonderful marketing opportunity … and the ideal medium to compete in a global market”.

The UK was on the cusp of an internet revolution, and we were there to help them make the most of it.

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The second part of our look at making a strong business case for your intranet considers how to approach stakeholders with the idea.

Before you start talking to anyone else about a new intranet, you have to be clear in your own mind what it’s going to bring to your business. Our previous blog post – on starting out on your intranet journey – looks at setting goals and objectives for your new intranet. Once you’re confident an intranet will support your organisation’s aims, you can start thinking about taking the case to others.

Seeing it in context

Set the new intranet in the current context of your business. Look at the drivers behind your decision to implement a new intranet, both positive and negative. Based on the goals you’ve set, figure out what benefits a new intranet would deliver to your colleagues. It helps to think about each department in turn, and what they would get out of it.

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We’d like to share some future thinking from Barry Smart, IT Director at Hymans Robertson.

Barry has written a terrific blog post about how this major independent financial firm has embraced the Microsoft enterprise platform to create a thoroughly modern business.

In the post, Barry refers to the Cloud as an “unstoppable force” which businesses can no longer afford to ignore or delay thinking about. He outlines how it is transforming business models and creating new ones, not just in his own sector but across every market.

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Make your first steps towards a new intranet less daunting by building a structured business case. Here’s how.

You might instinctively know your organisation needs a new intranet, but instinct alone isn’t enough to justify the time, effort and money needed to build one. To do that, you’ll need to create a compelling business case.

A business case lays the foundations for progress towards your new intranet – so if you don’t know where to start, this is it. It helps make it clear why you need a new intranet now, and how it will support your organisation in the future. And, done properly, it will open the right doors and unlock the funding to make it a reality.

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Interested in intranets and want to know more? Looking for a starting point? Read on to discover what a modern intranet can do for your organisation.

What is an intranet? Put simply, it’s an internal website for the people who work in your organisation. It lets colleagues stay up-to-date with what’s going on across your business, access the most recent versions of key internal documents, and share their own knowledge and insight.

What kind of things go on an intranet?

Intranets can hold any kind of information that is relevant to your business. Whether it’s dynamic, fast-changing information such as breaking news alerts, or more documents that change less frequently, like HR policies, it’ll be at home on a modern intranet.

An intranet can also link in to your staff directory and provide an easy way of finding the right colleagues.

Why would a business want an intranet?

By storing your information on an intranet, everyone has access to the most up-to-date information available, wherever they are. Done right, an intranet can become a trusted first port of call every time a member of staff needs to find a document or person, or simply wants to know what’s going on in the business.

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The whole world is going paperless, and it’s a vision we’re proud to support.

But we know that some people just aren’t ready to make the leap.

That’s why we created PaperPoint.

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Hiding in every organisation is a potential team of digital superheroes. Find out how to reveal the identities of your own intranet champions, and how they can help take your intranet to the next level.

Good user adoption is key to the success of any software project– but for an intranet, it’s absolutely critical. We’ve already looked at one way of driving intranet take-up – creating a solid information architecture.

You can further ensure your intranet takes off by recruiting and empowering people within your organisation to become ‘intranet champions’.

What makes an intranet champion?

Intranet champions sound like superheroes, but they’re really just enthusiastic colleagues who are familiar with your business’s structure and internal processes.

They are people who care about your intranet project, and genuinely believe it can help change their workplace for the better.

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We take a look at why it’s so important to build your intranet on a solid information architecture, and how to make sure you get it right.

Photo: Card-sorting exercise, used under Creative Commons

Corporate intranets don’t become intuitive, popular and easy-to-use by chance.

Before an intranet is built, it’s really important to determine its shape, decide what prominence to give each feature, and come up with a menu structure that works.

Rather than relying on sheer luck, you can ensure success by constructing a good information architecture that reflects how your users and business work.

What is an information architecture?

Information architecture is the process of designing a structure to hold the shared information and content that makes up your intranet.

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