How intranet in-a-box products maximise the value of SharePoint

There’s a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where a group of protestors are discussing how terrible the Romans are, and then start to list the wide variety of benefits that they have brought, including bringing in drinking water, safer streets and more. And it’s funny, as the rebels realise but refuse to acknowledge that the Romans have introduced many things they are thankful for.

The ring of “What have the Romans ever done for us” reminds me a little of those organisations that choose to implement a complex, enterprise-wide intranet using just SharePoint Online out of the box without fully considering the value that an intranet software product and vendor can bring. As my colleague Chris Tubb points out in his recent post on "The hidden costs of a free intranet: what you should know" when as Spark Trajectory we help clients to select the right intranet product, SharePoint Online invariably comes last or nearly last when pegged against established products in considering the full requirements of the client. Product requirements are individual and unique to each client, but the inability of SharePoint to fully meet them is relatively consistent. To at least not consider the value an intranet product can bring, is a little like saying "What have the intranet vendors ever done for us".

The temptation of SharePoint

We fully understand why just using SharePoint Online for an intranet is an attractive proposition and often strongly advocated by IT functions: the reduced costs; maximising the investment in Microsoft 365; a quicker route to launch day without the need to procure a new solution with less up-front effort and hassle.

However, you also really need to know what you’re doing to implement it. And if you want your intranet to do everything it needs to do and work how you intend it to from day one, you may need to be prepared to:

• seek extra technical advice
• buy additional software and features
• rely on legacy tech that you had plan to retire
• customise some web parts
• spend more time managing content and supporting users from the centre than you originally intended
• compromise on some of your requirements

The combination of these things is going to place a dent in the costs and value associated with just going with SharePoint alone. ?

But the more canny intranet software vendors have been around in the market for a long time and to date they’ve been able to navigate the challenge from Microsoft’s move to support SharePoint as a viable independent intranet solution. The reason they have been able to do this is by continuing to deliver value in a number of different ways.

What the intranet vendors have actually done for us

The intranet vendors tend to offer value – and continue to offer value – ?in a number of distinct areas:

1. Offering far more flexible branding solutions: This helps meet the needs of organisations even with multiple sub-brands, or who simply don’t want to their intranet to look like SharePoint.
2. Additional features to engage and support users: Providing some strong engagement-led and much-desired features that are usually met by additional solutions, covering everything from peer-to-peer recognition to facilitating mandatory reads to introducing guided tours and overlays. These kinds of capabilities are extremely difficult to achieve with SharePoint out of the box without customisation, but may be available for free within an intranet platform, although sometimes at additional cost. These may feel like they’re on the periphery of your must-have requirements, but multiple “Nice to Haves” can actually prove to be quite compelling.
3. Adding personalisation options: By including more personalised options such as the ability for users to add their own apps to link to from the intranet home page, a popular intranet feature that is missing-in-action from SharePoint.
4. Supporting content governance: By including content governance features that can support devolved publishing and make it easier for local content owners to manage and review their own content. Features can range from helpful templates to editorial views that show when items are ready for review.
5. Supporting internal comms: Most intranet products are still much better geared towards supporting the comms professional in your life than SharePoint is. More flexible news templates, approval workflows, editorial calendars, helpful analytics, and more.
6. Supporting multi-channel and campaigns: By adding value to support multi-channel communication and campaigns with the ability to set up, orchestrate and report it all from one platform – all without having to spend your budget on Viva Amplify.
7. Helping with the implementation: By providing value during the implementation phase – doing some of the heavy lifting – and also though offering ongoing customer support, for example through a Customer Support Manager (CSM) who can help with adoption, metrics and best practices, and a customer community to drive best practices. If you’re a busy team of one, the value of this additional support can make a real difference.
8. Input into the product roadmap: By dangling the opportunity to suggest features for the roadmap that are more likely to get accepted.
9. Meeting your needs and your budget: By offering options that are specific to the needs of different organisations. There’s segmentation within the intranet vendor offering to suit most needs and budgets. If you want a particular frontline solution with a strong mobile experience, something more geared around engagement and internal communications, something that is simpler and you just need to extend the number of web parts that SharePoint offers, or you want a huge mega employee experience platform with a bewildering set of options. An intranet vendor somewhere has you (and your cash) in mind.

Intranet products save you time and provide a better experience

SharePoint Online is a viable option for your next intranet but it comes with challenges. An intranet product and its vendor are keen for your business, and Microsoft’s continuing evolution of SharePoint has kept the industry on its toes. A product isn’t the only option and yes, it comes at initially more cost, but it’s often the way to meet your full requirement list, have access to more features, and drive more sustainable intranet content and communications. ?

Spark Trajectory is an intranet and digital workspace consultancy, working with innovative models to help you deliver your project like a pro. We provide services in this area such as Content Strategy, Intranet Product Evaluations, our Intranet Governance Accelerator and our Intranet Launch Accelerator. Do say Hi, sign up to our newsletter or arrange a time to speak with us.