Guide to choosing the right company intranet

A well-designed company intranet (also known as an employee intranet or corporate intranet) has the power to transform how your business communicates, collaborates and operates. But not all intranets are made the same. It’s important to find the right intranet platform for your business.

In this guide, we’ll cover what a company intranet really is, how to work out what your business needs, what to look for in an intranet solution and how to choose the right platform. We’ll provide the questions you need to ask before you go shopping. No technical product specs or overwhelming feature lists, we promise.

What is an employee intranet?

A company intranet is a private, secure digital environment where your teams can find information, share updates, collaborate and connect. Used well, it can become your go-to hub that brings together your people and your resources.

Gone are the days of corporate intranets as one way (top-down) communication tools used mostly by IT or internal comms teams. Today’s modern intranets are so much more than that. They’re dynamic, user-friendly platforms designed to help employees find what they need, feel connected to their organization and each other and get work done more efficiently. It’s a workplace tool that people really want to use.

How to decide what your business needs from a company intranet

Before choosing any employee intranet platform, it’s important to think through your organization’s unique challenges and objectives. What’s driving your search?

Are you looking to:

• Improve internal communication?
• Reduce information overload?
• Support hybrid or remote working?
• Make key documents easier to find?
• Align teams with your business goals?

Remember, the needs of a 50-person creative agency will look very different from those of a 5,000-person healthcare corporation. That’s why it’s important to explore your very specific goals, pain points and audience before choosing your company intranet platform.

These five steps can help shape your approach:

1. Map your goals: What problems are you solving? Get input from teams across the business.
2. Identify pain points: What frustrates employees about your current tools?
3. Define your audience: Are you building for frontline workers, knowledge workers or both?
4. List essential integrations: What systems must your intranet connect with (e.g. Microsoft 365, HR or marketing software)?
5. Think long-term: What will success look like a year from now?

This early discovery process really is worth taking time over. It lays the foundation for a solution that genuinely supports your employees. Armed with answers to these questions, you’ll be better informed to find an intranet solution that’s right for your company.

What are the key features of a modern intranet?

While features vary from platform to platform, there are commonalities between them. Their main goal is to connect people and help them to work more efficiently and effectively.

Core features found in most intranet platforms include:

• News and announcements: Keeps teams informed with dynamic, targeted updates.
• Search and navigation: Helps employees find what they need, fast.
• Document management: Stores, shares and enables access to policies, templates and resources.
• People directory: Employees can find and connect with each other across locations and departments.
• Collaboration tools: Integrates with chat, video and project tools for better teamwork.
• Personalization: Serves the right content to the right people.

At Fresh, we believe a great employee intranet adapts to your needs, not the other way around. That means putting user experience at the heart of everything and focusing on meaningful outcomes rather than ticking off feature boxes.

How to choose the right intranet solution

Once you know what you need, choosing the right company intranet becomes much more straightforward. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.

You may be presented with fancy additional features that feel enticing. But before you sign up for things that you don’t actually need or won’t really use, go back to your findings on what you need an employee intranet to resolve.

Key considerations for a company intranet

• Does it align with your business strategy and goals?
• Is it user-friendly?
• Is it scalable?
• Does it integrate with your current systems?
• How much tech support will be required to implement and maintain it?
• Is it secure?
• What’s the content governance and management capability?
• How long will it take to implement?

Choosing an intranet solution isn’t just a software decision. It’s a strategic move that can positively influence your company culture, performance and retention.

At Fresh, we take the time to understand your goals and support you throughout the process.

FAQs

What are the different types of intranets?

There are various types of intranets, including:

• • Traditional intranets – Often static, with top-down communication and limited interaction. These are now being replaced by more dynamic platforms.
  • Social intranets – Focused on collaboration and employee engagement, with features like commenting, liking and user-generated content.
  • Cloud-based intranets – Hosted in the cloud for easy updates, remote access and scalability. These are ideal for hybrid and remote workforces.
  • Microsoft 365-based intranets – Built on established tools like SharePoint, Teams and Viva Connections. These integrate directly with Microsoft’s ecosystems, like Fresh.
  • Custom-built intranets – Fully tailored to specific business processes, but often expensive and harder to maintain.
  • Out-of-the-box intranet platforms – Solutions like Fresh provide ready-to-use functionality with the flexibility to adapt to your needs but without custom development.

Do companies still use intranets?

Smart ones do. More than ever. Intranets have evolved into essential business platforms.

Today, companies use modern intranets to:

• Support hybrid and remote work
• Centralize internal communication
• Increase employee engagement
• Improve knowledge sharing and document management
• Align teams with strategic goals

While the traditional, outdated intranet may be a thing of the past, the modern employee intranet is thriving. It’s smarter, more social and built to serve today’s fast-paced, digital workplace.

Why would a company use an intranet?

A company uses an intranet to connect its people with the information, tools and conversations they need to do their best work.

Key benefits include:

• Better internal communication: Streamline announcements, updates and important messaging.
• Improved productivity: Reduce time wasted searching for documents, policies or colleagues.
• Stronger culture: Build a sense of community, even across distributed teams.
• Consistent access to resources: Create a single source of truth for company information.
• Support for compliance and governance: Ensure the right content is shared with the right people, in the right way.

Whether you’re a growing business or a global enterprise, a corporate intranet helps you operate more efficiently and engage your people at scale.

Find the right employee intranet for your business

A modern employee intranet isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a vital enabler of communication, culture and collaboration. But to make the most of it, you need more than a platform. You need clarity on your needs, a realistic implementation plan and a partner who puts your people first.

At Fresh, we work closely with organizations to build company intranets that don’t just launch, they last. If you’re ready to explore what that could look like for your business, we’re here to help. Let’s chat