Here are the 11 reasons why SharePoint Intranets fail and what you need to do about it

31 / October / 2017

Babita Kiran

Have you been optimizing your Intranet portal? How would you know?

An Intranet is a private network within an organization and it is used for various purposes such as file sharing, employee contact information, and company news, etc., Intranet is originally developed to increase the productivity of an organization by keeping everyone connected.

But, advancing it technically has become the focus of most organizations, while making the employees adapt to it should’ve been their goal. Every organization may have their own, unique structure for an intranet but almost all the organizations list similar reasons for the failure of their Intranet.

Here are 11 reasons why Intranet failed to impress employees:

1. Not Giving Enough Attention to User Needs

Any tool becomes a success if its users are satisfied with their experience. But many organizations make their Intranet complicated by incorporating unnecessary tools into it. While this may make the intranet advanced technically, it fails to meet its user needs. This can be avoided by taking a few simple measures beforehand. Like, during the development phase, all the important tools that are required for an organization should be taken into consideration. Conducting a survey among the employees will help get an idea of what exactly is required and what can be left for future development.

2. No Integration of Processes

Intranet will serve as a communication portal as well as the main platform where employees can share information. Employees use many programs for different purposes, daily. So, it is vital to integrate all the processes or at least as many as possible. Integration of processes like accounting, time management etc., should be integrated properly as this may save a lot of time and money for the organization.

3. Failure to Inform Staff

This is another reason why Intranets fail in many organizations. Once an Intranet is deployed, all the employees of the organization should be well informed about its usage. They must have a good idea about how to use it and it should be made clear that only the organization’s Intranet should be in use.

4. Employees Do Not Communicate Properly

When an Intranet is deployed, it is done so in hopes that communication between employees and sharing of information will be improved which in turn improves productivity. But this does not happen in many cases as employees do not communicate as effectively as one would expect. When communication is not proper, Intranet will not be as useful as it was meant to be and this results in its failure.

5. Outdated Information

The newsfeed of an Intranet should be constantly updated so that as soon as employees log in to the portal, they are updated on what’s new and what’s the status of ongoing things in the organization. Catching the interest of employees should be given a lot of importance as this increases the usage of the Intranet. Not updating will make employees lose interest in the Intranet.

6. Use of Multiple Platforms for Sharing Information

When information is shared through multiple platforms, the need to use Intranet will be limited to share some information and will be ignored for all the other purposes. This ultimately leads to the failure of the Intranet. This can be avoided by using Intranet for all purposes instead of using multiple platforms.

7. Complicated Navigation

Any application should be user-friendly. When using an application confuses or makes it difficult for a user to understand its features, users will lose interest in the application and it will be forgotten. This is one of the reasons Intranet is a failed project in many organizations.

8. Improper Search Feature

When user types in something in the search bar of an application, it should immediately display results. When this is not the case, users lose interest in it and it will soon be replaced by something else. So, the search feature should function properly and it should provide filters so that users can customize it as per their requirement.

9. No Proper Governance

When an Intranet is set up in an organization, it should be governed properly. As employees start getting comfortable with Intranet, they might get stuck in some places. When something like that happens, employees must be aware of who to contact so that the problem is taken care of immediately. There should not be any confusion in it. Else, it becomes irksome.

10. Failure to Be Strategic

All the goals and purposes for an Intranet should be kept in mind while developing it. The homepage of the Intranet should convey its purpose very clearly. Stating its goals and purposes in a precise yet concise manner is highly useful for an organization. Therefore, a proper strategy should be used in the designing stage itself as this solves and prevents many problems.

11. Communication

Many Intranets do not have a proper communication platform and people have to reply to emails for communicating. This is one of the biggest reasons Intranet is a failure in many organizations. Having a good communication platform is important so that employees can interact in a group or individually.

Intranet can be a huge success if only a few things are taken care of while it’s very first built. Saketa’s Intranet is one of the best intranet portals in the market. With all its out-of-the-box features, it has helped organizations such as Indigo, Puma, Burger King, etc to elevate its internal communication processes.