In today’s busy world, effective communication is essential for organizational success. As technology evolves, there’s a growing need for businesses to accommodate remote workers. An intranet plays a key role in increasing employee collaboration, especially between on-site and remote teams. In fact, companies that embrace digital workplace solutions, such as the intranet, see a 20-25% increase in productivity.
But what is an intranet? An intranet is a private, secure network accessible only to an organization’s staff. It is an internal communications and collaboration platform for any business to improve communication, collaboration, and document sharing between all teams.
An intranet acts as a company’s digital headquarters and go-to resource to keep employees informed and connected to each other and the company’s mission. A robust intranet solution is essential for employees to meet organizational goals. Discover more about how intranets are commonly used, how they work, and additional benefits.
How Are Intranets Used?
With the advent of digital workplaces, intranets offer a vast range of functionality, allowing them to serve a variety of purposes. The most common uses of enterprise intranets include the following:
Employee directory: Intranets provide a searchable database of employee profiles and contact information.
Document management: Storing, organizing, and sharing essential documents and files is easier with an intranet.
Internal communication: Intranets aid in sharing company news, updates, and announcements.
Collaboration: Fostering teamwork through project management tools, discussion forums, and shared workspaces is simpler with an intranet.
HR and employee self-service: Intranets help with managing HR processes, such as employee onboarding, time-off requests, and benefits enrollment.
Knowledge management: Intranets offer a centralized location for accessing best practices, frequently asked questions, and company knowledge.
IT support: Using an intranet, companies can offer a helpdesk and resources for troubleshooting common technical issues.
Training and development: Delivering online training courses and materials for employee skill development can be done through an intranet.
Distribution of policies: Intranets provide easy access to company guidelines, handbooks, and policies.
Personalization: Intranets allow access to personalized content based on an employee’s role.
Automation: Streamline workflows by automating repeating tasks via an intranet.
How Do Intranets Work?
An intranet is like an organization’s private version of the internet that is accessible only to its employees. Designed for internal use, intranets use web pages that allow employees to access information, communicate, and collaborate securely. Your intranet is hosted on internal servers and cloud platforms. These servers respond to user requests by finding the requested files in your content management system and delivering them to the user.
To access your company’s intranet, your employees must use a special network password and be connected to your local area network (LAN). Remote employees can access your intranet through a virtual private network (VPN) or other secure connection.
Firewalls and authentication systems are essential to your intranet’s security. These systems track all incoming and outgoing data packets to ensure they do not contain suspicious or unauthorized requests. They also protect against malware and malicious attacks.
You can also utilize a hosted software application. This third-party system is often cloud-based and hosts your organization’s intranet for you, instead of using a company server. The most popular hosted applications include SharePoint, Confluence, and dotCMS.
What Are the Advantages of an Intranet?
As innovative technologies emerge and advance the world of communication, intranets still wear many hats and serve a broad range of departments and objectives. Investing in an intranet like dotCMS’ Intranet Portal can benefit your organization in many ways, including:
Streamlined Communication
Intranets feature user profiles containing a photo, job title, description, and contact information. Any employee can access this information, which makes it easier to communicate with colleagues and other teams. Additionally, an intranet allows HR managers, executives, and team leaders to quickly share information with their employees, streamlining communication across your organization.
Enhanced Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
An intranet provides collaboration tools and transparent communications to foster a cohesive company culture. By making it easy to share knowledge, documents, and information between leadership and employees, employees are on the same page and can collaborate effectively.
Better Employee Engagement
Company culture and employee engagement are interconnected. A strong company culture improves employee engagement by aligning your team with your organizational purpose and recognizing each member’s contributions. This sense of community and recognition creates a sense of individual pride in employees, which encourages them to work hard.
Centralized Access to Resources
No matter the size of your organization, you have thousands of files stored across email threads, cloud systems, drives, and hard drives. A company intranet enables you to store all these differently formatted files in one place. This centralized hub makes it easy to store and access all your files and communications.
Improved Productivity and Time Savings
With the centralized hub an intranet provides, employees can find the information and documents they need quickly. When employees can access what they need, they waste less time searching for documents. This time saving enables them to work more efficiently, increasing their productivity.
What Are the Disadvantages of an Intranet?
As with any decades-old system, an intranet does have some limitations. The biggest disadvantages to using an intranet include the high initial setup and maintenance costs. Your organization’s intranet needs to be updated regularly to ensure it’s user-friendly and has advanced security.
Without proper maintenance, your intranet is vulnerable to malware, unauthorized access, or cyberattacks. Regular maintenance ensures content is updated and organized, which allows employees to find current documents easily. Another downside of an intranet is that without proper onboarding and training, employees may be reluctant to adopt it for everyday use.
Intranets vs. the Internet vs. Extranets: What’s the Difference?
Like the intranet, the internet and the extranet are types of networks. However, while they have some overlapping aspects, there are several differences between them.
Internet
The internet is a public network accessible to everyone who has a device that can connect to it. It can have an unlimited number of users at any one time, and it is more vulnerable to attack than an intranet. Other features include:
Public and open to all
Used for browsing, email, social media, etc.
No access restrictions
Intranet
An intranet is a private network designed for internal users and authorized systems. It can only host a specific number of users, and they must connect via a VPN or LAN. Basic features include:
Secure network for internal employees
Used for internal communication and resource sharing
Restricted access with authentication
Extranet
An extranet is an intranet that grants outside access to approved users. These users can only read certain documents or use applications they are granted permission to use. Put simply, an extranet has the following:
Shared access to specific external users (e.g., vendors, partners)
Allows collaboration beyond the organization
More secure than the internet but more open than an intranet
Reimagine Your Intranet With dotCMS
Intranets are continuing to evolve as the needs of organizations and employees change. These changes will travel familiar paths, including social and collaborative features, personalization and user experience improvements, advanced analytics and insights, and a mobile-first approach. With the growing popularity of remote work, your organization must leverage an intranet to increase collaboration and communication while keeping your information secure.
While intranets have changed, their reputation for secure collaboration and streamlined communication hasn’t. With dotCMS, you can build a modern intranet experience that’s flexible, secure, and tailored to your organizational needs. Contact us today to request a demo and learn how to reimagine your intranet with a scalable solution designed to increase your efficiency.