In the past company intranets were seen as an expensive luxury because they had a significant cost associated with them. However, over the past few years they have become increasingly popular as companies strive to increase efficiency and effectiveness. What’s more there are now intranets available which are based on SharePoint and therefore significantly reduce the cost of implementation.

Intranets provide a number of benefits to organisations including:

– Increased effectiveness of communications – With an intranet site, communication and therefore knowledge within a business is enhanced as there’s no longer a need to send an email, pick up the phone or walk across the office to tell a colleague something. With an intranet, you will be able to post messages or announcements for the rest of the organisation to see. This will allow employees to communicate with each other more effectively; and at the same time will reduce the possibility of silos of information developing within an organisation.

– Centralised resources – An intranet will provide a central location to store all resources. This will free up space on your server, because rather than being held on a centralised drive, all information can be stored on the intranet.

– Enhanced productivity – Intranets will allow faster, easier and more open communication. This will enhance employee productivity as knowledge across the organisation will be increased

– Different Security levels – This means that only certain employees can edit the content on the intranet – improving security

– Web Based – this means that you don’t need to worry about setting up software for each user. As long as they have network access and a browser, they will be able to access the intranet site

– Reduced litigation risk – by specifying security settings, storage policies, auditing policies and expiration actions for business records in accordance with data protection regulations.

– Consistent user interface – This will encourage user adoption and will simplify how people interact with content, processes and business data

However there are also a few concerns which arise as a result of implementing an intranet including: