Corporate Companies in General That Employ Intranet

¶ … corporate companies in general that employ intranet / Information technology systems as bases from which to function. The authors discuss ways in which these intranets can be strategized so that they function in an optimal high-functioning manner.

Intranets are beneficial in various ways: aside from their impact on bottom line being significant and direct, they also influence workforce contentment, thereby enhancing workforce productivity and connectivity. Intra-nets vary according to size and scope, but a well-implemented one enhances internal communication as well as directly contributing to organizational efficiency and productivity. The problem is that, oftentimes, employers / users fail to extract full advantage from their system: there is low usage, aborted projects, as well as the intranet usage itself being seen as a waste of time and diversionary to the 'real' worlds of the organization leading to some managers perceiving intranet as a lack of return on investment.

The authors provide various recommendations on how managers can exploit the intranet, getting the most out of this wondrous technology and optimally befitting from the opportunity. The recommendations are all reducible to the one fact that the company, when perceiving the intranet in terms of the information opportunities and competitive edge that it affords the company rather then seeing it a toy, will be encouraged to use it optimally. Problems are often not with the intranet per se but usually deeper with communication within the work site or with change-management when these particular problems are managed and when inter-employee or employee-employer communication is augmented, companies may find that they use of technology, including the use of intranet, becomes more effective.

Statement of the problem

The problem is that companies, frequently, fail to make adequate use of their intranet gaining less advantage of them than would otherwise be the case if they knew how to use it effectively (Archibald,1992). . More so, intranet can sometimes be seen as a distraction and deleterious to the company when ti results in aborted projects, and complaints of inefficient allocation of resources. Subsequently, various managers perceive intranet as according them a low return on investment when such need not have been the case.

Proposing a solution

The all-encompassing suggestion would be to see intranet as tool that is instrumental to the goals of the company and to perceive it in terms of its ultimate value rather than as an accessory. That the tool will indeed become so is something that can be engineered from the outset by the company constructing the dataset in alignment with its goals, its resources, and information that is exclusively relevant to the company. Focus should be placed on the relevance and use of the system to the organization rather than on the recency or popularity of the program. Keeping the employee and his/her needs in mind should be the guiding question regarding the extent to which the system can assist the employee in meeting the company's needs (Lucas, 1999). The system should be kept simple and all programs should be one that employees will be easily able to learn. Middle management support in terms of assistance with the intranet has to be there and communication has to be functional (Ibid.). Possibilities for feedback and hands-on-assistance have to be in place. Most important, the character of an intranet is team-based and collaborative and, in order to be of use to the organization, it should be employed as such with managers using it to serve as hub of information for their employees and to unite employees in company-centered projects. By marketing the intranet, managers can promote the intranet's value and advantages, and finally, managers should keep the database system relevant to the organizations' changing times and fluctuation business environment.

Learning Application.

Intranet can best serve a company when it slanted towards the company's needs rather than on recency or popularity of specific programs; when it is dedicated to helping the employee fulfill his/her goals, when it fosters a collaborative, workplace-oriented environment, when it is relevant and flexible to change, and when it is simple and its programs amenable to rapid cognitive acquisition and cognitive retrieval. It need not be costly; it should merely be relevant.