Could your company intranet ever be liked, or even popular?

There was a time, long ago, when your company intranet was like a pleasant and picturesque landscape. A quaint, bustling little town; complete with cobbled streets, clean air and the faint aroma of baking bread, surrounded by rolling hills, wooded seclusion where wild animals emerged to drink from clear, swollen streams.

Yet, with time, growth and progression comes and with it the unavoidable ‘wear and tear’. Your townsfolk began taking their own habitat for granted while the modern world relentlessly encroached. Nowadays, the streams are polluted, those cobbled streets are not adequate for the new modes of transport. Worst of all, your people are not bothering to use the resources that remain in place—the aroma of baking bread is replaced by rotting fish. One day you take an overview of your environment and you see the pollution, the graffiti, the barriers and road blocks to a harmonious location, and you realise that something needs to change.

Explore your needs

In our previous posts of this five-part series we likened the role of an intranet manager to that of a city planner, and made the point that today’s business needs are more advanced, nuanced and faster paced than what the traditional intranet was capable of dealing with. Today we ask whether you could be like a city planner who makes the city more liveable, safer and cleaner.

So why isn’t your company intranet getting the traction it deserves? And can you turn your intranet into a place people actually want to work?

If you want it to be a well-used (and, perhaps, even loved) resource, you must understand why it is failing your employees in the first place. Like our city analogy, if your intranet is unpopular, it’s probably because it’s difficult to navigate, a bit dull and altogether quite stale. Ultimately, unless you make key changes to modernise your intranet, your environment will become unsustainable and productivity in your company could break down.

More than a simple popularity contest

For your company, your intranet is essentially where you ‘live’, and it’s therefore very important to have the right infrastructure in place. If your intranet has become clogged with ‘dead’ files and other redundant content, or has become difficult or complicated to use, you need to consider a refresh. Replace the gutters with a modern sewage system, pave the roads, paint the streets, plant some trees, and attract those who have moved away to come back.

There is, of course, a bigger goal with upgrading your company intranet than just having something that’s popular. The real purpose of a revamped, well-functioning, and easy to use intranet is for better communication, collaboration and productivity – both internally and externally. However, by creating an environment that people really want to use, you encourage all those other, more important activities.

Fresh features

With Fresh from Content and Code, a better functioning and better looking intranet is a viable reality. Fresh intranet is up and running and rolled out in weeks rather than many months. And, because it is a solution that is purposely built on Office 365, you get all the collaborative and Business Intelligence tools you would expect from Microsoft in the cloud. That means the latest social tools, co-authoring and sharing documents and other content with the click of button, as well as instant messaging and video conferencing without having to jump from one system to another.

Fresh has personality

People flock to Rome for the history as well as the atmosphere; they are drawn to the capital city’s personality. Places with personality enjoy a higher level of engagement from the people who live there, which in turn attracts more and more people. Fresh’s easy to navigate and well sign-posted interface makes it easy for your employees to get around. Also, with its high functioning search, social and collaboration tools baked in, Fresh is an intranet with personality that your employees will have no issue engaging with.

Fresh is flexible

Fresh provides easy access to tools, resources and valuable company information like news and policies. It’s straightforward to update and easy to maintain. Its flexible templates can be deployed for many purposes from department sites to project sites and team sites. It’s mobile, ensuring your employees will get a great mobile experience for anywhere, anytime access on any device. And, it’s extendable and integrates with other solutions your business has, which means you benefit from a platform designed for expansion as people flock to your new ‘city’.

Fresh works well with others

Fresh is aligned to the Microsoft Office 365 product roadmap and works seamlessly with Microsoft innovations. Along with that, you will have access to constant upgrades and enhancements delivered through the cloud to keep your environment… well, fresh!

Fresh looks great

Where would you rather live, Peterborough or Paris? Use Fresh to revamp your company’s central digital meeting place and make it a place people are inspired by. With a smart, company-branded design and intuitive interface, Fresh looks fresh and keeps up with all the latest trends in enterprise IT.

Fresh packs a punch

Headed by Microsoft MVP Chris O’Brien, Fresh not only provides you with an intranet which grows as your business grows, but provides you with the skills and expertise of a team that have worked with Microsoft technology for over 15 years and has have just won Microsoft Partner of the Year 2016 for Content and Collaboration.

Fresh, from Content and Code, helps you put a plan in place to have a modern and highly functional intranet that your employees will actually want to use. Not only do we help you on each step of your rollout, but we also focus on helping your staff get the most out of your Fresh company intranet, by connecting it to the tasks they do every day. In this way, the intranet goes from being the place where documents and conversations go to die, and becomes the place your colleagues can communicate and collaborate with ease, from their mobile or desktop, anytime of the day.
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To learn more about Fresh and see how it will engage your staff, contact us today. Also, stay tuned for the next post in our series where we discuss the role of intranet in modern business.