Breaking the Chains

You just got all your employees trained to use the Internet - why would you even want to implement an intranet? Wouldn't that just be a waste of time? Absolutely not, says Extensity CEO Bob Spinner, whose bailiwick is intranet applications that automate day-to-day employee management. An intranet means efficiency, Spinner says, and what company doesn't want to eliminate time waste? Not just any intranet will do, however. Read on and get the tricks of the trade from the man who's made intranets his business.

Focus on the Why of Intranets

Some employers worry that they'll be giving employees a time-wasting tool with intranets. Nothing could be more wrong, says Spinner. Instead, an intranet is all about accomplishing necessary tasks fast.

"An important aspect of making companies more efficient and their employees more productive is allowing them to do these interactions at one particular point," Spinner says. "So rather than having four different places they need to head to, they'd be able to go to one single point, which might be called an employee portal, and be able to do all of the processing and only enter information one time. These applications feed each other in terms of providing data from one application to another. As we've seen, we've significantly reduced the amount of time that our employees spend on these day-to- day administrative activities." For instance, Spinner states, a corporate intranet could have all the necessary connections and information for an employee to book and pay for business travel with a connection to an expense report that is automatically filled out as the employee buys the trip. As Spinner puts it, an intranet saves time and that saves money.

"Often companies think of the intranet and the Internet being associated with electronic commerce, Buying and procuring goods over the Internet," Spinner says. "In reality, there's so much more and so many different types of applications, whether that's customer relationship management, administrative tasks in the market or other tasks. There's just a lot more they can do than just buying or procuring goods over the Internet. And there are so many different opportunities to automate their internal operations, whether they call that an intranet or not. They could probably do that much quicker than they had expected."

Spend on Infrastructure

Companies that skimp on intranet infrastructure will soon regret their mistakes, Spinner warns. A slow or inefficient intranet is no saving at all.

"Businesses want to make sure that they invest properly in the infrastructure because one of the worst things that could happen is to provide good applications and then find that the performance is unacceptable," Spinner says. "Because then any of the users will become frustrated with the intranet. I would suggest one of the first things that especially a medium or large sized company do is insure that they have the proper infrastructure in place to support any applications that they'll be implementing." Employees waiting eternally for the intranet to respond are wasting time, not saving it. A smooth, fast intranet is worth spending a few extra dollars.

Have the Intranet Ready to Move

Employees may not at first understand the intranet and may be reluctant to use it. This problem is seriously exacerbated by companies that launch their intranet with confusing, difficult-to-use programs.

"Whenever an intranet is put in place, you want to insure that the first applications that you bring up are successful and really provide value back to the user," Spinner says. "You want to get over any preconceived ideas that it's too difficult, complex, or doesn't provide enough value. So if the infrastructure's in place and you choose the right applications to automate up front, I think it builds a lot of momentum and excitement about potentially what the online access for all the employees can mean to the corporation."