But survey respondents believe they need to be…
Recently, MindTouch sponsored a survey conducted by TechTarget to learn more about best in class Intranets in the SMB space and the Global 3000. We expected most Intranets not to be Enterprise 2.0 enabled, but we wanted to learn first hand the different varieties of Intranets and if they were providing value.
Interesting note: 87% of the respondents had an Intranet while 13% did not.
Who took the Survey?
TechTarget interviewed over 200 companies. Twenty-three percent of them were over $1 billion in revenue while forty-two percent were between $1m and $50m. A good mix of respondents.
Let’s get to to the results:
Which Enterprise 2.0 Components are Companies Using?
It’s surprising to see how little Twitter style messaging has been adopted by companies. User calendars, blogs, wiki’s and forums have high usage. There appears to be ample opportunity for Enterprise 2.0 vendors to position their solutions around Scorecards, finding subject matter experts and workflow to name just a few.
Intranets Remain Stagnate
When asked how they would describe their Intranet most described it as having static content with only a few empowered to update it.
| Response | Percent |
| Our Intranet is has a lot of static content updated by a few people | 39% |
| The distributed intranet. In larger organizations, your intranet very quickly becomes decentralized. You end up not with a single, definable “intranet,” but with dozens or even hundreds of small applications (e.g. – a phone directory, document repository, an announcements system, a document library) that you group around common infrastructure. | 34% |
| The collaboration platform. Users publish just as much as they consume. This type of intranet is big on wiki’s, blogs, discussion forums and other ways to people to connect with each other. Also may feature a document repository. | 17% |
| Collaborative Network – A collaborative platform plus data integration sharing, dashboards, metric driven and project collaboration. | 10% |
Most Intranets have a Wiki
TechTarget asked respondents about the systems that constitute their Intranet. Surprisingly, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) scored high indicating more CRM systems are being tied to the intranets or their CRM system is the Intranet.
Revenue and Innovation are not yet tied to the Intranet
Most Intranets appear to be meeting planned objectives for internal cost savings, internal communication and operational effectiveness. Opportunities for companies lie in the ability for Intranets to provide Revenue growth and innovation opportunities. Look for MindTouch to have additional solutions here shortly.
| Response | Not an area of focus | Not yet known | Did not meet planned objectives | Met planned objectives | Exceeded planned objectives |
| Internal cost savings (e.g. process streamlining, collaboration efficiencies, resource search) | 22% | 22% | 8% | 46% | 2% |
| Internal communication (e.g. better information sharing, connecting with employees, etc.) | 3% | 9% | 15% | 59% | 14% |
| Operational effectiveness (e.g. quality/process improvements, productivity increases, etc.) | 6% | 22% | 13% | 52% | 7% |
| Data Integration (e.g. integrating data from disparate data sources) | 24% | 18% | 11% | 40% | 6% |
| Revenue growth | 55% | 19% | 9% | 15% | 2% |
| Product innovation | 52% | 16% | 8% | 20% | 4% |
| Average % | 15% | 10% | 6% | 21% | 3% |
Most Intranets are not integrating data from ERP or CRM systems
One of the weaknesses of today’s Intranets are that most of them are not integrating data from other systems to give decision makers and employees a complete view of the corporation. CRM appears to be the lone exception where 38% of the respondents have connected CRM data to their Intranet.
Managing projects and team dashboards are number one choice for best in class Intranets
According to respondents, managing projects, team dashboards, easier data integration, and robust document management are the top choices for what constitutes a best-in-class Intranet. Most believe the Intranet should be used collaboratively and to help connect people with data and projects. It should also be used to monitor projects and data.
The Bottom Line
Corporate Intranets are not using the newest Enterprise 2.0 tools. The majority remain static billboards. Of those that are using Enterprise 2.0 tools, most report operational efficiencies, internal cost reduction and better internal communication. The challenges are in measuring all of the benefits of E2.0 enabled Intranets.
How do you measure ROI? A new class of analytics are starting to tackle that problem and will be used to help convince even the most resistant CFO.
Don’t miss my next post where I’ll break the data down into segments and show you how high performing intranets are being used in the workplace.
