Time for a re-think?

Every year, web usability guru Jakob Nielsen unveils his list of the top ten best-designed intranets in the world. And this year, the team at Enterprise Information was delighted to see that, for the first time, non-US companies dominated the rollcall of winners. These included European powerhouses such as O2, Vodafone and Bank of Ireland.

“In fact,” said Nielsen, commenting on the results, “the globalisation of good intranet design is actually greater than this simple list implies, since many of the winning companies are highly multinational, with team members operating in multiple companies.” At Vodafone, for example, intranet technology is managed from Germany, with development contributions coming from corporate sites in California, Spain, Italy and Egypt.

Everywhere in the world, it seems, companies are taking another look at corporate intranets. They are asking: What have we done right so far? What do we need to rethink? How do our employees feel about the intranet? And how could we make the experience better for them?

On page 12, for example, Stephen Musselwhite, global intranet manager at office and industrial equipment distributor the Electrocomponents Group, explains how his company transformed its corporate intranet to truly reflect the global nature of its business. On page 20, Tom Brannan and Richard Miller from intranet consultancy Vigorat, explain why it is important that a corporate intranet should accurately reflect and ‘fit’ with the company’s culture and suggest tools and techniques for getting a handle on the slippery subject of cultural identity.

Finally, Paul Chin continues his four-part workshop on intranet post-mortems – a subject that that should give readers planning an intranet redesign plenty to think about. But some information management strategies need a rethink more urgently than others, it seems. Our cover story this month looks at how high-profile losses of back-up tapes containing the personal data of customers, employees and others is prompting some companies to consider encrypting these tapes before sending them to offsite storage facilities. Others, however, still believe that the cost and complexity involved does not make encryption worthwhile. Who is right?

I hope you enjoy this month’s magazine. And if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at jtwentyman@ark-group.com. I look forward to receiving your e-mails.

Features

Cover story: Lost in transit Free
Backing up data to tape – and storing those tapes off-site, somewhere safe – is supposed to be the ultimate in security. But what happens if one of those tapes goes missing?

Case study: Electrocomponents Group Free
Through a clever combination of technology and policy, the Electrocomponents Group has built a global intranet that can ‘speak’ to an international workforce.

Q&A: Enteraction TV Free
Enteraction TV’s new intranet system CADIZ enables clients to view and approve television footage any time and from any location. Enterprise Information spoke to Michelle Gordon, communications director at the company.

Regulars

Last word: Wake up and smell the podcast Free
Last year I wrote about podcasting. At the time, this emerging technology was new, exciting, undirected and largely misunderstood. Only a handful of businesses were using it to enhance their websites and only a small population of MP3-player owners were downloading podcasts.

Opinion: Collaboration without borders Free
The rise of suites of collaboration software tools over the past few years implies that collaboration has become a fully integrated set of activities. However, I personally view the suites as collections of useful, but largely independent, tools rather than truly integrated suites.

Workshop: Intranet post-mortem Free
Maximising the life expectancy of a corporate intranet is one part planning, one part experience, and one part crystal – ball gazing. It is as much an art form as it is a process of critical analysis. But in order to ensure an intranet has a long and useful life, predictions of that lifespan need to be made during the planning stage, before the first fingertip is laid on a key to commence programming.

Workshop: Survive and protect Free
No organisation can afford to wait until disaster strikes to see how it can cope under pressure. A little planning can go a long way.

Workshop: A cultured approach Free
Organisational culture is pervasive and strong -- and an intranet will only be accepted and used by employees if it provides a good fit with their values, expectations and daily routines.