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Corporations are beginning to realize the potential of their Intranets as a source for communications and collaboration among employees, a report on the Top Intranets for 2010 has concluded.

In releasing its annual report on the state of intranets, research firm Nielsen Norman Group noted that intranet design is maturing and leading companies are putting more resources into their internal Web efforts. The company found that the average team size for corporate intranets was 14 people, a 27% increase over the average team size in 2006. The median size among companies surveyed was 6,350 employees.

The firm also found that the most innovative companies are making use of mobile access. About 30% of the intranets surveyed had mobile features, such as a version of the intranet suited for viewing on mobile devices. This trend is likely to accelerate, the firm concludes.

“Although most intranet use probably does occur at work, people will increasingly expect “anytime, anyplace” access because that’s what they get from those big Web sites that set user expectations,” the report states. “Also, employees who frequently travel often account for particularly high-value use cases (such as sales calls).”

The firm says another trend driving the need for improved mobile access is the fact that employees are getting better at using mobile devices such as smartphones, and as the features on such devices improve, they will become more demanding in the types of tasks they’d like to complete using the devices over an intranet.

The research firm named 10 companies and organizations that it felt had the best examples of intranets for 2010. Among those named, Enbridge, a transportation and utility company based in Canada, and MITRE, a not-for-profit organization managing four federally-funded research and development centers, had created special stand-alone mobile intranets. The mobile intranets, tailored to Blackberry users, featured scaled-back offerings of critical content and applications from the main intranet.

Another recognized organization, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA center that manages robotic spacecraft exploration, built a dedicated application, rather than a mobile site, designed for the iPhone.

In addition to innovations on the mobile front, the research firm noted this will also be a year for incorporating social networking on intranets. It noted Wal-Mart’s creation of profile pages and discussion forums on its intranet, as well as security firm Trend Micro’s TrendSpace, a feature that allows employees to self-contribute content to its intranet.

The firm pointed to one other important trend in intranet use: the increasing importance of the intranet as a resource for emergency preparedness. It noted 40% of the organizations recognized for having the best intranets incorporated intranet features with the explicit goal of addressing unexpected emergencies.

The following are the organizations recognized as have the 10 Best-Designed Intranets for 2010:

• Enbridge
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• MITRE Corporation
• GE
• Wal-Mart
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• Huron Consulting Group
• SCANA Corporation
• Trend Micro
• URS Corporation

Comments (2)

	1. 01-08-2010 23:29
	They weren’t recognized in this report, but Sabre, the company that runs many of the world’s largest airline reservation systems, has created a very innovative Intranet. Called Sabre Town, the Intranet makes extensive use of social networking features. It allows employees to create their own profiles, share photos, and submit blogs and comments. Sabre helps employees create profiles by having them answer such questions as: What’s your hometown? What are your skills, expertise, or things you rule in? What are the sports you can’t live without; And, What’s the music you put on continuous repeat? Obviously, Sabre is a company that feels very comfortable with social networking. Registered

Mel Duvall

	2. 01-17-2010 14:29
	Intranets are a tremendous value add for organizations, and yet even after 15 or so years of the dawn of the intranet there's not much awareness of what best practices make a great intranet or commitment of resources to do so in most organizations because the hard ROI is hard to prove in an intranet business case. Given the move to cloud computing, we need to see some capable offerings of intranets in the cloud that exceed what Basecamp or hosted Sharepoint sites offer. Registered

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