Top 10 Intranets of 2013

A free translation of an article by Jacob Nielsen and Kara Pernice about the 10 best intranets of 2013 in the world and trends in the development of such solutions - " 10 Best Intranets of 2013 "

A year ago, Jacob Nielsen, who traditionally strives to make the Internet work for users as convenient and accessible as possible, spent research in the field of intranets and identified key trends that will occur in the coming year. This study found that 70% of winners use highly customized SharePoint . Among the main trends identified are almost double the size of the development team, a number of advantages: improved integration with social networks and numerous advanced filters.
It seemed to us that this study was not widespread, and we decided to fill this gap and discuss with you whether those trends that the Nielsen Norman Group talked about happened.

Recall that the Nielsen Norman Group company annually holds an intranet contest, according to the results of which the top 10 intranet portals are determined.

So, the top 10 intranets by the end of 2012



In most cases, these are full-fledged intranets that take into account the specifics of the company and satisfy the needs of all departments of the organization. And only two of the top ten intranets have highly specialized functionality: AT&T offers its employees a "first line", a special knowledge portal, and the Luzerner Kantonalbank intranet is open for consultants of bank customers.

The best intranets of 2013 were created in six industries



. The insurance sector has been the leader in the number of winners for two consecutive years.

The winners of 2013 are residents of 7 countries. The



Saudi Commission on Tourism, Historical and Cultural Heritage is the first winner from the Middle East. The rest of the countries have already “delivered” the winners to the top.

The success of countries for the entire existence of the competition



Given the size of the country, the most impressive are the successes of Switzerland (7.9 million people or 2.5% of the US population).

Now let's look at the key trends identified by the Nielsen Norman Group in January this year.

Trend No. 1. Creating a good intranet takes several years

According to the study, the average duration of an intranet creation (from idea to full implementation) is 3.5 years . It took about 27 months to create each of the winning intranets, which is about 2.3 g.

Trend No. 2. Small companies dominate among the owners of the best intranets.

Every year, smaller companies become the owners of the best intranets. For example, in the study, most winners have less than 5,000 employees. Seven intranets serve less than 5.000 employees, one company has created its own system for 6.000 people, the highest rate for AT&T (127.000 people) and the smallest for Acorda Therapeutics (350 people).

The average number of employees in winning companies over the past 5 years



Perhaps two years of research is not enough to declare a trend, but the data suggests that creating a good intranet is becoming easier , and therefore such systems are now available to smaller organizations that have fewer resources.

Trend No. 3. Teams serving the intranet are growing

Teams working on the creation and implementation of intranets within companies are growing . On average, up to 27 people are working on winners' intranets. AT&T has the largest team - 107 people . Today, the share of intranet specialists in the total number of employees of the organization is 0.14%, that is, 1.4 specialists per 1000 employees. Last year, this share was only 0.07%.

The growth of intranet service groups, in% of the total number of employees, 2001-2013



The study showed that in order to create a good system that is able to motivate employees and increase labor productivity, appropriate personnel are needed and there should be a lot of them. Designing, developing, writing texts, managing the system - requiring a small group of specialists to perform these tasks is simply dishonest.

Trend No. 4. Outside consultants are actively involved

Six out of ten winners had external companies involved in the creation of the intranet, and most of them were companies developing on SharePoint. Third-party agencies and independent consultants are helpful in resolving highly specialized issues that are not regular for the company.

Trend No. 5. Content creators are attracted early on.

Attracting employees from different parts of the organization in the early stages of intranet development is the best team practice. If until 2013, in the early stages of design, the requirements, opinions and wishes of employees were mainly collected, in 2013 content creation was added. Thus, specialists can get rid of unnecessary content, edit existing materials, and optimize solutions.

Quality content is the most powerful motivator for intranet users: they come for information.

Trend No. 6. Functional and design development

Among the notable functional and design trends that have been developing over the past years, we can note:

• mega-menu; ( http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mega-menus-work-well/ )
• video channels;
• Advanced employee profiles
• personalized home pages and sections.

This year new trends have been added to these trends:

• Corporate streams from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social resources on the main page of portals or in news feeds (this trend is especially well represented on the intranets of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. and AIG).
• Advanced content filtering (good examples can be seen in XL Group, Luzerner Kantonalbank, AIG, and AT&T systems).
• Possible actions in people's search results (Ono, Luzerner Kantonalbank, and Acorda have interesting solutions in this trend).

Trend No. 7. Interest in mobile versions is declining

Only one of the winners has an intranet adapted for iPAD - AT&T. The "mobilization" of internal systems is stagnating - in 2009, three intranets from the top survived the optimization for mobile devices, and in 2011 this figure increased to six.

Typical obstacles to the development of mobile versions of the intranet:

• data safety and security
• difficulties with choosing a platform,
• lack of resources needed to design and support mobile versions,
• difficulties with the selection of a set of functions (a complete solution or application for specific tasks).

In our opinion, these trends are obvious and have a place to be. It is interesting to know if you agree with this and hear your opinion.