Intranet solutions are at the heart of many businesses today, helping to facilitate a seamless flow of information across all levels of the organisation and streamlining the core business processes. In an agile work environment, a business intranet helps the employees to stay connected with each other and correspond over a secure shared network.

The decision to go ahead with a business intranet solution can be quite rewarding for companies in the long term. However, with plenty of intranet options available in the market, it can get quite confusing in knowing what platform best suits your requirements and how to make the best choice?

Here we’ve shared some vital information on this topic to guide you through the process of choosing the best intranet solution for your business:

Determining the Right Type of Business Intranet Solution for You

There are many reasons for acquiring an intranet solution for your company, from improving employee collaboration, speeding up file access and storage or even boosting productivity within the organisation. Most intranet platforms are extremely flexible and can cater to a wide array of needs, so depending on what you want to achieve using an intranet solution, it should be possible to explore the most appropriate option and features available to get the best results for your business.

The next step is to identify the right kind of intranet solution and the features that are needed to meet your goals. For example, Cloud-based solutions are quite popular among many companies as they are easy to access and quick to implement. These online intranet platforms are ideal for small businesses that lack IT staff and do not require any change to the on-site infrastructure. SaaS solutions are affordable, fully customizable and easy to implement as well, but can mean a bit more involvement from your IT staff to implement as an onsite solution.

In more detail…

On-site Intranet solutions

On-site infrastructure may be more suited for large organisations who already have a company server and a dedicated team of IT staff with all the technical know-how. An on-site intranet solution will most likely require significant investment with managing the maintenance and security issues related to the intranet software, which is probably why most people tend to opt for cloud-based.

Cloud-based Intranet solutions

The cloud-based intranet software is hosted by external service providers, like the Hub is securely hosted on Google Cloud. This type of business intranet offers many interesting features and templates that can be customised according to the needs of the organisation. Cloud based Intranet software is easy to set up and does not require any technical expertise. The hosting company you purchase your business intranet from will manage all the maintenance and security issues, which frees up your companies time to manage other vital tasks more efficiently.

Three Steps for Choosing Your Business Intranet Solution

1. Decide on your budget

Cloud-based solutions may be economical for small businesses, but the overall cost structure may vary depending on the vendors. Make sure to discuss various options with different vendors and find out their charges and the kind of services which they would be willing to offer. Check out for any attractive offers that may be available through vendors with any extra features or services being offered. For instance, with the Hub, you benefit from a cheaper price-per-user the more users you have on your intranet, plus you get free software upgrades for life. Small things like this can help make your business intranet solution more cost-effective and efficient in the long term.

2. Assess your ROI

Will the intranet contribute positively to your bottom line? According to the recent report by Forbes, positive engagement of employees has a profound impact on sales, quality, safety, profits and shareholders returns. Most intranet platforms will have comprehensive reporting in place for you to track user activity and engagement, so you can optimize our business communications and help maintain a productive workforce.

3. Test and experiment

If you like the sound of any intranet solution, then it would be best to try to arrange an online demo or free trial periods (if the intranet vendor offers one). This will help you assess if this intranet solution is right for your business and will allow you to talk through the flexibility of the platform with the vendor, as many providers (like the Hub) can offer bespoke features and functionality which can be built in specially to suit your individual needs.