Understanding Intranets
Intranets, in their primary role of enabling collaborations and knowledge sharing, exhibit, as compared to their social media counterparts, a more formalized and compartmentalized approach to interactions and information flow. From providing efficient functionalities to address technical, infrastructural and employee issues, to providing a central repository to access presentations and information from remote locations, intranets are created customized to enterprise demands with the sole purpose of driving employee engagement and enhancing productivity.

The importance of being Social
So, where does social media figure in an organization’s efforts to ensure greater employee productivity? It is of course, understood that apart from providing functionalities that enable effective enterprise functions, what actually helps organizations achieve productivity targets is an effective exchange of ideas and viewpoints, while providing a platform for effective employee engagement.

Social media, by virtue of its approachability and user friendly nature, enables employees to contribute, discover and interact with their peers and others, and ascertain what they have to offer in terms of skill sets, knowledge and experience. Moreover, applications that allow people to initiate conversations, create and maintain open forum discussions and knowledge sessions, and discover newer avenue of business, all in an informal personal environment, go a long way in building effective relationships and a more productive atmosphere.

The best of both worlds
But this is no reason why we should dismiss the intranet. Social media applications, for the most part, lack the organization and structure that most organizations are built upon. Moreover, a well structured navigation system and a content management system that provides easy access to required data is an organizational requisite, which again, is something that most social sites fall short of providing.

In order to get the best of both worlds, intranets thus designed with evolving enterprise needs in consideration, could be integrated with applications that drive engagement and interactivity, and thus provide a platform for driving productivity and attaining organizational goals.
A sampling of the potential offered by such a union is offered below:

• Functionality that enables voting and recommending of articles considered relevant, helpful or interesting.
• Dynamic news feeds that provide actionable, critical information for employees to know and act on.
• Internal networking applications that apart from providing employee contact details, also list areas of individual expertise, and thus make it easier for employees to find one another to collaborate on projects and get questions answered, among other requirements.
• Enterprise/employee generated section, showcasing podcasts, photos, videos, that includes training videos, offsite trips, company outings etc.
• Blogs and forums, that while providing efficient exchange of ideas and views, could evolve to become a barometer of enterprise thought.

Essentially, it all percolates down to the fact that a successful intranet deployment should integrate the advantages of social media with the core applications already proven to enhance corporate information sharing and effective employee engagement.

The intranet is expressly used as a common platform for all employees. It provides access to company documents, policies, procedures, project details etc. Plainly put, an intranet is an internal website that only users who are logged into the company network can see.

Intranets are sometimes also hosted publicly using secure protocols so that employees who would be unable to access company resources, like those who are at different locations or at client offices, can log into the intranet.

Intranets vary very much. They can range from a single page on which a company can put notices to complicated sites which have their own rules built in for the day to day activities of employees like time tracking for projects, personal financial information related to salaries, details of investments, knowledge repositories for projects, training modules, etc.

Examples of the most commonly transitioned procedures and functions by different departments are -

• HR – since HR is the group that maintains engagement throughout the course of an employee’s life in the organization an Intranet becomes an essential strategic tool for this group. Some of the commonly used tools by HR are Contact Directories, Leave Applications, Surveys, Organization charts, Ongoing Training Modules, Guidebooks/Handbooks/Manuals etc.
• Sales – Sales as a function and a process requires access to quite a few documents and should also be able to interact with the organization in a centralized way even when not in the office locations. Also, as one of the responsibilities of sales is to be able to provide an estimate of the sales for the month or quarter, and to provide reports on targets and achievement statuses, the intranet becomes an essential tool for Sales.The existence of a well designed module can provide a snapshot of sales till date, which is available continuously and helps in financial planning. Some of the commonly used features of the intranet by Sales are Centralized Sales Dashboards, Demo’s, Contact directories, Forecasts, Pricing structures, Researches, Business Intelligence reports etc.
• Finance – As a function, Finance has to maintain a trail of requests and authorizations for each function they perform in order to be accountable. An intranet is an essential and strategic application for them to ensure all practices are rigorously followed. Some of the commonly used tools by Finance are Capital acquisition form, Expense report, Budgets, Financial Reports, and Payroll etc.

A well designed intranet is actually normal human interactions like reporting, requesting leave, salary advance, taxation advice, delegating and carrying out tasks, reporting etc. which has been converted into a computer based format. This allows an employee to have the freedom and convenience of not being face to face with other people in the organization, thereby increasing productivity by allowing him to carry out these interactions from his location.

Why an intranet?

An intranet is essentially a communication platform. It allows people to use their time efficiently. As an example, if an employee needs help on a specific problem, and another employee who encountered it has put up his solution on the intranet, the first employee can refer to the same, and solve his problem instead of checking around for various solutions saving valuable time.

The intranet helps in bringing data and experience together which every employee can then leverage to attain the common goal. A well designed intranet allows every employee the chance to use the entire company’s experience in order to do his work.

As an example to illustrate the point, a major issue that companies have is tribal knowledge. Tribal knowledge is unwritten pieces of knowledge or information that is needed for consistent performance.

Usually possessors of this form of knowledge are very reluctant, or may not even realize the knowledge they have. However if they can be encouraged to share it, the improvements can be tremendous in terms of efficiency. This information can then be shared on the intranet.

The intranet, being a strategic tool, allows each employee to contribute to the growth of the organization in the best possible manner by providing them a common platform for sharing and communicating.

Develop or Lease?

Intranets can be either designed in house, or can be rented/leased from other providers. The following set of questions help in making a decision as to whether one should create an intranet in-house, or whether it would be better to lease one and start a partnership with the person one has leased it from:

• Do you actually need an intranet?
• Do you have resources that are trained in the skills required to create an intranet?
• Are your resources trained and experienced in building systems for human interaction, and not as a series of rules and formalities which a user would find very hard to understand unless training is provided?
• Have they any exposure or any understanding as to how a user actually uses a system?
• Do they understand how a user interprets the process that is used to complete a task?
• Can they design the intranet to be intuitive so that minimal time is spent on orienting users?
• Can they design the system to increase operational efficiency?
• Do they have the capability to design the navigation in a manner to reduce the amount of time taken to complete a job without overwhelming a user?
• Can they design the intranet based on human experiences and not as a series of functions?
• Can you spare them to create the intranet or is it more important for them to be available for client projects?
• Can you hire a resource to completely dedicate his time to increase the efficiency of the intranet?
• Can you ensure a person from management can drive it and be responsible for it?
• Do you employees have multiple profiles to handle? Do they have responsibilities other than the intranet alone? Can you ensure that they will be driving the intranet in a user centric manner?

If your answer to most of the questions above is no, or if you can not allocate enough time and resources internally, then it is better to lease an intranet and let your partner drive the project.

Choosing the right partner for your intranet

If you need to choose a partner to create your intranet, the following are the things you need to bear in mind

• Experience – Your partner needs to have varied and diverse experience in order to be able to recommend procedures that work best. This means he should have the necessary exposure to the procedures followed by companies in various industries.
• Commitment – Your partner should be willing to work along with you and not just deploy the intranet. For any problem, multiple solutions exist however not all may be feasible. Your partner should be willing to understand problems and devise solutions that he can implement on the intranet without compromising on functionality and efficiency while providing a quick response.
• Capability – Your partner should have a team capable of solving issues in terms of technologies and protocols.
• Understanding – Your partner should have the capability to understand the users who will use the system, how they carry out their job functions, and how an intranet can be designed to facilitate their jobs and to increase their efficiency.
• Ability to scale, and stability – Your partner should be able to work alongside you as your organization grows. If your company is on a growth phase, and depends heavily on coordination, your partner should be able to last as long as you. While choosing a partner do bear in mind that he should be able to take market fluctuations and survive in the market.

If your partner has these qualities then you have made a good choice.

What you need to do before you create an intranet

Once you have chosen a partner, you will need to work along with him in order to create your intranet. In order to make both your lives easier, you should sort out the following beforehand

• Establish the objective for the intranet. Is it to increase operational efficiency? Is it for knowledge sharing? Is it for internal communications? Once the list is created, grade them in terms of importance and keep this list in mind while discussing the same with your partner.
• Most companies have protocols like leave related information and information pertaining to employee records like date of joining or date of birth or the address on records etc. can be changed only by the HR department. Payroll information will be published only by the finance users. Does your organization have any such protocols? If you have, then list them down, and if not, create them. This will save a lot of time once you begin development.
• Which content pertaining to employee records can be published? What information regarding projects will be available publicly and which will have restricted access? Who will have access to what information? For example, only members of a project will be able to see reports pertaining to the projects, but anyone can join for a discussion on the project related discussion forum.
• Will content be reviewed by department heads for quality of information? If not, who will be responsible for the content – your partner or your employee who will drive the intranet?
• Will each department responsible for putting up content be creating it or will your partner be creating the content after interacting with each department? Who will be responsible for the information produced? The departmental head or the delegate from the department who will be liaising with your partner for providing information?
• Do you have any branding guidelines for the company? Are these to be followed for the intranet? Is there any specific layout to be followed?
• Who will take ownership of applications and content from your organization? There has to be one person on behalf of your organization who will need to manage the intranet internally – this person will be responsible for the information provided to your partner.
• Do you aim to use multimedia on the intranet? If so, what will it be? Flash based or will you use some other technology?
• What will be the frequency for backing up the intranet? Will the changes be carried out on a staging server, and be approved internally after which they will be put up or do the changes need to be made live?
• How will you measure intranet success? By the number of users? Or will each section have its own measure of effectiveness? What are the metrics for measuring the success and increase in efficiency and productivity? Will you measure each function separately or the overall performance only? If each module is to be measured separately, bear in mind the objective list created. How does this module fit in? How will it be measured?
• Establish fonts to be used, how links will appear, etc.
• Create Privacy policies regarding information available on the intranet and their usage, and any applicable legality. Are there any sections with sensitive information? You may need to check internally to see if a non-disclosure statement has to be displayed explicitly in this section.

Once you have decide on these details, it is very important to sit with your partner and find out what information he would need, and what formats he would need it in. Once this is done, you are ready to start development. Issues and clarifications will definitely come up as development begins, however ironing out these details in the initial stages will definitely speed up development.

Implementation – requirements

Once the intranet has been developed, you need to implement it. In order to do this, you need to find out from your partner what your partner requires. The common requirements are

• Servers – Production and staging
• Software licenses
• FTP and Login access (Staging and Production Server, or staging only etc.)
• Workstations – if any are required by your partner when his team comes to your location

A better method is to check what your partner would require from you and to provide the same to him.

We depend on computer for everything – data, communication, calculation, forecasts, trends etc. This has allowed Indian businesses to counter most negative global trends and keep up the growth pace. But at the same time, we have also developed a fatal flaw – vulnerability.

For a moment, imagine – one of your company’s top level employee loses his PDA. You might say that you will replace it and his efficiency will remain the same. But, what would the implication be? Most PDA’s are now substitutes for lap-tops. The access to organizational information provided by these devices is such that a single PDA is now able to dispense almost all the confidential data that your company may have.

Add the effect of human nature to the mix, and you have a potential security threat that may destabilize your entire business. Very often, it is not necessary for your employees to devices or information regarding access points to sensitive organizational data – it is enough for them to be merely disgruntled.

To give an Idea of the scale of damages that occur, across the globe, in 2008, companies lost $1 Trillion due to Data Theft, and spent $600 million trying to put things right.

Indian Law and Data Theft

Indian law is woefully inadequate in terms of defining what theft of Data is, and the punishment prescribed. What is more ridiculous in the Indian context is that (till the IT act 2000 came into effect) you would need to prosecute your employee/contractor under a combination of sections under the IPC 1860.

There are two possible scenarios in data theft by an employee–

• Your employee stole a hardware form of data – you would have needed to prosecute him under Sections 22 (defining movable property), 378 (defining Theft) of the IPC 1860
• Your employee emailed/transmitted data – you would have needed to prosecute him under Sections 405 and 406 of the IPC 1860.

Add another dimension to this, that of data carriers or data warehouses and bankers and brokers, and you would have needed to prosecute such a crime under sections 407 and 408 of the IPC 1860.

Since the IT act 2000 came into the picture, the same crimes can be prosecuted under Section 43(b) of the act in parallel to the ones above – however damages are limited to one crore rupees. Now relate this to the amount you have invested in research and/or gathering data, and you have an idea of the scale of damages you may have.

Irrespective of the damage, you would still do well to inform your employees or contractors that any data theft would be punished under applicable laws.
The most logical method to counter/deter data theft is to create agreements that very specifically mention data entrustment to such employees or contractors.

Acceptable Usage Policy – What to cover

The objective behind an Acceptable Usage Policy should be to clearly state the company’s policy regarding use of the intranet/information system, to avoid potential liability, to promote healthy practices and information in order to reduce threats, and ensure positive use of the resources provided to employees.

The essential areas that need to be covered are –

• Principles governing usage of such systems
• Consequences for unauthorized usage
• Whether systems are monitored
• Laws applicable
• Encouragement of safe usage practices

Acceptable Usage Policy – Application

Most companies use an Intranet. They also store sensitive information on the same system. If an employee has access to such information, then it is usually assumed that such an employee will not disclose it to the outside world.

However, here lies the basic flaw. This is an assumption. One way to make this assumption into a legal contract is to provide an Acceptable Usage Policy/Guideline. An acceptable usage guideline usually outlines the activities for which the company has provided the access to such systems. It is however, rare to find even a privacy policy (which actually contains rudiments of such guidelines) on most intranets.

Even if such a policy is available, it is usually relegated to the footer part of the pages. Frankly – have you ever scrolled down to the bottom of your internet banking account to ever check what the links there are? That’s how much notice this will get.

So how can we inform a user of such systems of what constitutes an acceptable use?

There are a few ways of achieving this objective that are in use–

• As a part of mandatory joining procedures
• As a part of induction training
• As a part of the intranet footer

However, I can testify to the fact that these are not very effective means of achieving the same. Another method that may be used is what is usually used in software installation files – that of making the user scroll down to the end of the policy itself and click on a check-box stating he/she has read the same and agrees to it. This is effect allows the company to inform and the user to acknowledge acceptance of the same. This can be used on the sign-on page – or before login is allowed for any of your systems.

I agree, this can end up being slightly irritating, but it can be achieved on any information system by making a user acknowledge the entrustment of confidential data while signing on to such a system.