6 Uses and Applications of Intranet in Business

By Emma Worden | Intranet | November 30, 2022

There is no doubt that these days we are living in the digital online, which, over the last couple of decades, has come to completely dominate the business landscape. This digital transformation brought with itself countless benefits but also some perils we should keep in mind.

The most notable example comes in the form of cybercrime which, according to recent surveys, costs companies around the world approximately $4.2 billion annually.

Recently, businesses have started founding solutions to this burning issue in the form of intranet, or in other words, private enterprise networks that allow employees to engage in interaction in a safe, contained environment.

Is this idea, however, suitable for more versatile use, and if so, what are some of the most enticing use cases? Let us try to find out together.

Strong document control

Effective document control makes one of the main foundations of an effective enterprise. Keeping that in mind, while cloud apps can go a long way in addressing this issue, intranet still presents a more favorable solution for a number of different reasons. First, the companies using this resource are not dependent on the services of a third party. Second, since all files are held in the same place and use the same infrastructure, they are also easier to locate and share. Finally, the intranet resources also ensure that the speed at which the sharing envelopes easily outpaces all alternatives on the market.

Streamlined communication channels

The channels for internal corporate communication these days are more than plentiful. While this situation offers business owners a great deal of freedom to leverage these resources according to their current needs, using too many different channels for different business tasks can create a sense of clutter and confusion. Using the intranet for this task, on the other hand, does narrow down the list of options you have on disposal but also gives you a unified, consistent and streamlined infrastructure where your information and files can be shared without any delays or reliance on third-party resources.

Internal content management system (CMS)

This might be one of the greatest benefits of the whole intranet concept. Namely, using these novel resources does not give your company only a safe and isolated infrastructure that effectively leaves employees to their resources. On the contrary, the professional intranet CMS software can lend organizations a highly effective content management system allowing owners to create different workspaces, leverage public and private communication streams, and take full control of document management. These perks do a great job of setting up a very intuitive and effective work environment.

Simple task delegation

Task delegation can make even the most complicated business procedures simple and streamlined. Fortunately, the intranet CMS solutions usually feature options that allow anyone in charge to present the pending tasks, assign them to different team members and keep a very close eye on how these processes are enveloping. What’s even better is that, since the corporate intranet operates on an ‘always on’ principle, these assignments are delivered immediately and can be tackled without any delays. The assignments are delivered transparently, so all parties know what’s going on.

A powerful platform for public announcements

Corporate communication, or critical public announcements, is usually performed through emails. This channel, however, despite offering countless benefits, still leaves too much room for mistakes, oversights, accidental neglect, and so on. The intranet is capable of handling this challenge in a much simpler and more streamlined way. Namely, since all team members are working within one shared and always connected environment, the critical messages and announcements can be delivered directly without any obstacles or needless steps. That allows for a tremendous level of transparency.

Countless options for third-party integration

Last but not least, we would like to remind you that although the intranet and its CMS platforms keep all critical internal resources isolated in a safe and contained environment, these resources are not completely sandboxed. On the contrary, intranet platforms allow for an excellent level of third-party integration that allows you to expand them with social media functionalities, productivity apps, and practically all other resources you need at the moment. So, with endless customization options at your disposal intranet can easily be transformed from a powerful platform to a very powerful business tool.

We hope these couple of examples gave you a general idea about just how powerful a business asset intranet can be if used in a creative and versatile manner. Of course, the first idea that comes to mind when someone mentions this technology will always be a tremendous level of digital security. But boiling down such a powerful platform to such a simple and narrow interpretation is nothing less than a waste of resources. So, if you are planning some much-needed business overhaul in the near future, intranet should definitely be one of the options on your table.