International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE)

Vol. 6, No. 3, June 2016, pp. 936 ~ 944

ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v6i3.9307  936

Intranet Design Strategies

D. Rohith Roshan, K. Subba Rao

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, KL University

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: The intranets have been deployed extensively in large and small-scale
organizations. It has grown rapidly by offering features like collaborative
Received Nov 3, 2015 communication channels, easing the business processes etc. Typically
Revised Dec 24, 2015 organizations faced difficulties but they are prevalent while implementation.
Accepted Jan 7, 2016 But the organizations lack clear strategies in designing intranet. It leads to
loss on investment, time and productivity, a complete intranet failure.
Previous studies mainly focused on management, security and usage etc.
Keyword: This paper presents 9 design strategies for intranet addressing system
oriented plan that can be applied in real-time to achieve improvement in
Communication organizational performance.
Design Strategies
Intranet
Knowledge
Copyright © 2016 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.
All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author:
K. Subba Rao,
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
KL University,
Green Fields, Vaddeswaram, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh 522502.
Email: [email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION
An intranet is a network which is limited to its organization providing collaborative communication
to the employees that are located in different geographical locations [1]. Intranets include E-mail, CMS
(Content Management System), Calendars, Project Management etc. With extensive benefits of the intranet,
organizations are showing interest in implementing intranet. For ex: knowledge governance with intranet will
provide great benefits to an organization [2]. Benefits of intranet include efficient, cost-effective, stability,
flexibility, productivity and many more.
As organizations came to know its value, the intranets consistently develop from a communication
tool and resource sharing into new collaborative workplace areas. A conceptual model [3] has identified the
effect of collaborative workplaces and suggested that intranet usage is highly driven by organizational
culture, as well as by perspective towards blogging.
From communication and information perspective, an intranet is productive in socialization and
finding information. Likewise, communication and information are integral to one another with respect to
socializing newcomers. Developing a great intranet framework will enhance socialization in newcomers
faster and better. In the information point of view, newcomers are slow in obtaining information from
intranet but in communication point of view they are effective in finding information from intranet [4].
An intranet is an information system that utilizes internet technology and firewalls to provide
expandability, security, and openness. Internet technology concentrates on security issues in connections
between intranet and the internet. It is hard to compare and handle the network connection between intranet
and internet. Furthermore, there is inadequate technical support for intranet security. Therefore, intranet
security is a critical issue. Besides requirements for intranet and internet security are dissimilar. The internet
mainly concerns about secure transmission of information between systems. While, intranet security limits
within the system inside organization [5]. 

Journal homepage: http://iaesjournal.com/online/index.php/IJECE

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  937

Many times intranets are typically large information systems and they are meant to evolve which
makes it hard to design as flexible system that can handle changes [6]. For this aspect Agile Software
Development is the best to implement it. Incremental change is the main idea of agile development. For ex:
Develop a small intranet with few requirements and take employees feedback, make modifications according
to the feedback and then move to other requirements. Like this incremental way by involving users in
designing can make a better intranet.
Since the viability of information systems relies upon its user acceptance, various studies have
analyzed the elements that influence user acceptance. Failures and loss of revenue in the intranet is often
accredited to employees who won't accept information systems [7]. And also the external factors [8] include
task interdependence, task equivocality, and web experience affect the perceived usefulness, perceived ease
of use and usage of intranet.
A problem with the intranet is to make sure that employees perceive a way to get access to
information they want for better performance. The intranet will be more powerful if it is designed as an entry
portal for daily business activities of an organization. For this purpose, intranets should provide information
like rules, regulations, demos, etc. So, an intranet architecture should be simple such that an employee can
find the right information quickly. The simple architecture is to follow organizational structure. Since the
employees know the structure eventually they perform well [9].
The key aspects for intranet’s success include content, management and technical infrastructure [1].
Even though there are several successful stories, many users are baffled and irritated with the intranet for the
profits they never get. With the extensive use of intranet, quality management is required. Efficiency,
functionality, and reliability [10] are the key factors along with suitability, accuracy, availability, time
behavior and security are need to be considered for intranet quality management.
In organizations intranet is extensively utilized as communication tool and knowledge sharing.
Organizations are regularly confronted with the difficulties and assured benefits on technology, but
difficulties are prevalent in implementation. Business changes, economic facts and competitional pressures
made departments to change into more collaborative than independent [11]. While organizations utilize
information systems like intranet, employees are supposed to receive and support the technology instantly.
Although issues like unstable design and insufficient groundwork has affected the intranet acceptance. Poorly
designed and managed intranets damage the circulation of knowledge, creates mistrust, and have a bad
customer relationship.
Unfortunately, little has been done on the design of intranet. In our study, we present 9 strategies as
shown in Figure 1 for designing intranet regardless of size of the organization and which can be applied
practically to achieve improvement in organizational performance.

Figure 1. Intranet Design Strategies

2. INTRANET DESIGN STRATEGIES

2.1. Determine Objectives and Promotion
2.1.1. Determine Objectives
Efficient Intranets must satisfy perpetual needs of employees inside working environment.
Determining objectives for the intranet assures that the implementing technology, design and governing rules
reflects employees' needs. Several organizations understood the absolute and underlying benefits with
Intranet Design Strategies (D. Rohith Roshan)
938  ISSN: 2088-8708

intranet and are eager to make outstanding speculations regardless of costs. The evaluation of substantial
needs of the business is important before intranet design undertaking. Therefore, an effective intranet should
be able to signify its support to organization towards accomplishing its objectives. Indeed, the objectives of
intranet must be associated with organization objectives, in such a manner that they can help intranet's
assessment. The following are the key objectives. In addition to these an organization can have other more
objectives according to their business needs.
a. Amplify Organizational Communications.
b. Manage Teamwork.
c. Smooth-Running of Business Operations & Processes.
d. Yield Remarkable Money-Savings.
e. Boost Organizational Knowledge Governance.
f. Enhance HR Management.
g. Revenue Growth.
h. Integrating Business Applications.

2.1.2. Promotion
Promoting intranet is a never ending process. The promotion of intranet to staff is eternal, starting
from its launch day to its ultimate retirement. Employees will endure intranet ignorance through time.
Moreover, the intranet significance will disregard, or they will exploit only a minimal section of the site. For
effective intranet promotion, determine its objectives sound and complete with a clear message. The intranet
must be exposed at all possible levels of an organization. Make discussions with the utmost number of
employees in the organization, about intranet over and over again. An extremely compelling promoting
strategy is to supplant attachments in the e-mail with relevant links to intranet pages. Like this, email acts as
a marketing strategy for intranet. In the whole organization, all browsers ought to have intranet as its landing
page. In this manner, at every time the user opens the browser, instantly intranet is displayed. Above all this,
few organizations have decided to open intranet on user login. This approach sets intranet in the sight of the
user at the very beginning of each day. A lot of these organizations realized this technique as exceptional,
especially when the intranet often changes its landing page like presenting quote of the day, news etc.

2.2. Roles and Responsibilities

At whatever point any new kind of application is developed, a group of experts will play a crucial
role to drive things easily. Your organization intranet is a type of application and needs the expertise to help
oversee it. An intranet, regardless of it well structure, can't develop or advance productively if the experts
aren't there to pull it in a progressive direction. So it is necessary to get the right people with defined roles
and responsibilities to drive intranet with the goal that it will continue to exist consistently even it grows over
time. We categorize these roles into three types.

2.2.1. Administrative Roles

Intranet Sponsor / Owner
The intranet sponsor/owner preserves the association between intranet and organization’s objectives.
They will assist in both resource and financial related requirements of the intranet. They are the final decision
makers in intranet related matters. Under their supervision, a committee will be in action whose sole
responsibility is to pay attention to the following intranet issues:
 Form a Governing Principle.
 Determine and authorize an intranet rules, regulations, and perspective.
 Build a Business Framework for Intranet.
 Make policies for Publishing
 Budgeting Projects and Prioritization.

Intranet Manager
Intranet Manager is a person in charge for providing and organizing the intranet. His responsibilities
include project management, recognizing intranet's further development opportunities etc. Likewise, he is
responsible for assigning proper authorizations and makes certain that things won't go out of hand. He
supervises the overall working of intranet on a daily basis, concentrates on guaranteeing that the intranet
works as a productive business tool, and also ensures that everybody is following intranet rules. This job
turns out to be particularly essential when you have an extensive subset of staff using the intranet daily, as the
requirements for intranet evolution grows with each contribution to the virtual group.

IJECE Vol. 6, No. 3, June 2016 : 936 – 944

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  939

Business Analyst
An organization commonly establishes an intranet with one principal objective of efficient daily
activities to enhance the business. Hence, there should be somebody within in the bounds of the intranet who
can act as a business analyst, deciding every single move which should be made in order to keep the
organization winning in competition. Mostly, these people should have knowledge on how the organization
works in both internal and external matters so he can identify trends and guide the organization in the best
course to move further. He should be in contact with business pioneers to collect needs for new intranet
projects and oversee the efforts of the development group. His key objectives are to be in communication
with clients (internal employees), to comprehend intranet requirements, analyzes business cases viability for
discrete projects, to design best the Knowledge Governance solutions for Organization and also to fulfill their
business requirements.

2.2.2. Information Technology Roles

Architect
Unlike designer, the intranet architect is different in several ways, predominantly he is responsible
for managing information. A wrongly managed information can overflow intranet, which is why somebody
should tackle with this role. As an exceptional information architect, it's a trial and error task in many times.
To design an absolute structure for the community, it is essential that the information architect must consider
the requirements of your organization along with several other features of the intranet. In such consideration,
employee’s feedback can be exceptionally useful.

Designer
The attractive and modern intranets of these days were the outcomes of the intense hard work made
by skilled designers. He can make an intranet to look pleasant, cool and trendy. It is frustrating and
troublesome when we stranded inside the intranet, hence a designer is required who can run intranet perfectly
and give a fresh look. Small scale organizations can't afford a designer, for this reason, they approach intranet
vendors, who take care of everything from design to its maintenance, so you don't need to panic.

Operating Team
The Operating team is actually a group of IT (Information Technology) people. They have a crucial
role in updating and maintaining the intranet. Their daily activities include allocating permissions for
accessing intranet along with assuring that intranet is accessible, sound and secure. This group is in charge
for all upgrading operations (which may include creating team sites, discussion boards and so many.) that are
approved by intranet committee. They guarantee trouble-free day to day operations in the intranet.

2.2.3. Content Roles

Content Approver
The content approvers are people who supervise in updating their departments information which is
normally information regarding business, (for example, news) or department's, (for example,
occasions/events) and authorize it. They guarantee that this information/content is valid, latest and as per
standards specified by the Intranet Committee.

Content Contributor
The majority of intranets permit everybody to contribute information/content to a certain level. And
you can set specific checklists or limitations that should be followed while contributing the
content/information. These contributors are in charge for proposing the content by following intranet rules
and deal with the pages that they are responsible for.

Content Writer
Writers/Editors are the content quality controllers with respect to the standards of the organization.
They guarantee that the business content/information which is delivered is in reliable inflection or using a
prescribed style. These content writers make story lines on organization news or events, inventions and may
be the intranet progress itself.

2.3. Communication & Governance

2.3.1. Communication
Increasing communications inside of an organization is the central idea of an intranet. Disconnected,
dislocated and mislead employees can show bad performance and disengaged personnel that eventually
effects your business.

Intranet Design Strategies (D. Rohith Roshan)

940  ISSN: 2088-8708

An intranet is an appropriate collaborative communication tool to attract and collaborate your

employees to keep them informed and effective to improve work productivity for better customer service
and business operations. The design of an intranet should support productive workplaces where each
employee has given value and opportunity of contributing their ideas. This can be accomplished by engaging
employees with a reliable source of information and conduct discussions or debates to exchange their views
and ideas for the sake of the organization. The requirements of several different internal communications,
includes:
 Broadcast top-level goals, strategies and decisions.
 Disseminate compliance and administration updates.
 Sharing organization’s events, news, and success stories.
 Announcing organization’s innovations in services and products
 Unveiling industry updates
 Conveying operational and frontline messages

2.3.2. Governance
Knowledge Governance is an area which supports in managing to recognizing, representing,
assessing, sharing and extracting the entire information in an organization. Organization is not a single thing
or being, it is an association of people. Therefore, conventional strategies and procedures are essential, the
wealth of an organization lies with the knowledge of people/employees working under it and how they utilize
it. Knowledge Governance offers several procedures and methodologies, tending to four principal attributes:
 people
 process
 content
 technology
In organizations, the community-based collaborations should take responsibility of maintaining the
knowledge concerning their domains by building a knowledge base. This helps other
departments/domains/sections of business which may encounter same problem. And this base may be
developed utilizing various feasible and distinctive technologies like CMS, social networks/collaborative
communities and wikis. Despite technologies utilized, the environment should be developed with a
perception on how knowledge can be shared and managed with respective to the requirements of the
community.

2.4. Information Architecture

Information Architecture is a means which keep knowledge and information systematically such that
people can simply obtain what they need. The intranet ought to be able to handle any kind of content:
 Text
 Images
 Videos
 Documents
 Forms
Never try to design your intranet excessively. This may cause over-investing in technology which
may be troublesome and expensive to perform modifications within the future. Concentrate on a simple
design which is flexible with the growing employee needs and changing environment. Intranets have an
incredible quantity of knowledge that has to be simply accessible. Therefore, utilizing proper navigation
feature is important to an efficient intranet and best client/user experience. Information Architecture is likely
to incorporate the subsequent features of an intranet site:
 site taxonomy/structure
 metadata
 search schema
 navigation
These are all correlated. For example, if you are navigating inside intranet then it is accordingly
handled by the site's structure. Hence, site structure mirrors your navigation as shown in Figure 2. In fact
your company's intranet information architecture reflects its organization chart. An efficient Information
Architecture supports the subsequent goals:
 Feasible : Will the IT team productively accomplish and control the information?
 Requirements Satisfaction : Will the information architecture meet organizational requirements,
security, and privacy objectives?

IJECE Vol. 6, No. 3, June 2016 : 936 – 944

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  941

 Effective Business : Will the architecture raise the business productivity?

Figure 2. Intranet Site Architecture (Courtesy: http://www.valiant-design.com/)

2.5. Branding
The intranet should have a powerful brand, a recognition. And when we say the word Brand, it is
not just a word mark, a color palette, and a symbol. It refers to the portrayal of your organization and it is
important. It impacts on the performance of employees and their interest on your organization. The intranet
must acquire a special identity from other organization communications such as company website. Above all
this, the brand got to earn employees trust and reveal its purpose.
If it doesn’t earn employee’s trust and they’ll just ignore it. And all your efforts and investment will
be worthless. Therefore, branding is so important for an intranet. Some elements should consider while
branding intranet:
 Intranet Name (simple and easily memorable).
 Go easy on colors.
 Minimize White Space.
 Convenient Navigation and Structure.
 Limited Graphics.
 Standard Design and Styles for pages.
 Use Simple Language.
 Reduce Header and Footer areas.
 Mobile Compatible.

2.6. Pick a Right Tool

The crucial decision you've got to take timely in the process of intranet development is to pick a
right tool. With a wide range of intranet tools available on the market, and it is simple to pay plenty of your
money and time on a tool that seems to be irrelevant for your organization. If it is relevant, does it meet your
requirements? Did not determine your requirements yet? Then it's out of the question. So before selecting
the right tool you should ask yourselves questions like:

Intranet Design Strategies (D. Rohith Roshan)

942  ISSN: 2088-8708

 What do you actually want with your intranet?

 What issues does your intranet must tackle?
Remember that there is no such tool like perfect intranet at all. There is just an intranet which fulfills
your organization requirements and which doesn't. Besides, this changes over time. Since your organization
expand and reform, the intranet also need to evolve till it totally outgrows. At that point, you need an
alternative. This is the inevitable lifespan of any tool/software and intranet is no exemption. By utilizing the
advantages and proper components of the tool, intranet often adapted to different business processes like
project management, marketing, collaboration, and development etc. Therefore choosing the right features
and developing solution for certain activity is very important.
Essentially, an efficient intranet should have broad features, be simple, reliable, scalable, and attract
your employees. Some of the features you should consider for selecting a right tool for your organization are:
 Content Management.  Messaging.
 Workflows.  Surveys
 Security.  Discussion Boards.
 User Permissions.  Versioning.
 Communication & Collaboration.  Publishing.
 Search  Site Templates.
 Business Process Management.  Alerts.
 Reporting.  RSS.
 Business Intelligence.  Administration.
 Wikis.  Mobility.
 Forums  WYSIWYG editor.
 E-Mail.
Choosing an appropriate tool for the intranet is same as assessing any other tool/software that you
use in your organization; determine the central usage of the tool, then find one that fulfill your requirements.
Your organization intranet can be an effective tool for a better productive and efficient business. So be
concerned with evaluating the features and uses of several intranet development tools that will escalate your
returns on investment.

2.7. Consistent Update

The intranet should remain up to date consistently and productively. In case intranet overgrows and
links broken, then it will be out of hand and hard to manage. At this point, the intranet will gain mistrust from
employees and slowly abandoned. Therefore, the intranet must provide trusted information to its employees.
To maintain employees trust the content should be:
 Productive.
 Precise.
 Complete.
 Up to date.
 Reliable.
 Understandable.
 Concise.
 Fulfill User Needs.

2.8. Periodic Assessment

It is not a good thing that you feel you've developed a right intranet so sit back and relax. You need
to assess the intranet whether it has an impact on your business. Otherwise, all your effort is worthless. So
you should seek answers for:
Does your intranet perform well?
How successful is your intranet in satisfying employee needs?
How well your intranet supports organization's objectives?
To get the answers assessment need to be done in the following areas:
 Usability.  Tools Used.
 Information Architecture.  Search.
 Content.  Navigation.
 Design.

IJECE Vol. 6, No. 3, June 2016 : 936 – 944

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708  943

Extensively assessing includes:

 Ratings.  Content Shares.
 Business Requirement Analysis.  Feedbacks.
 Employee's Average Spending Time in the intranet.  Unique log-ins per day.
 Page Views per Employee.  Peak times of use.
 Content Views per Employee.  Intranet Speed.
 Content Contribution per Employee.  Mobile Compatibility.
 Employee's Satisfaction.  Search Functionality.
 Monitor Usage of Workflows.  Discussion Boards Usage. etc.
Hence, evaluation provides you the intranet usage information and assess appropriate feature in
order to improve intranet participation in the organization.

2.9. Remote Accessibility

Avail remote accessibility of the intranet and corresponding resources. In several organizations, many of
its employees won't work in the office. They are called mobile/field employees playing roles as:
 Site engineers/technicians.
 Sales Employees.
 Consultants.
 Workers in Factories etc.
They don't have a desktop or PC. But all of them have mobile devices in common. Provide access to
important information despite location and connectivity. This will improve productivity in field employees.
You should keep this in mind while designing your intranet. In fact, many of the available intranet
development tools are providing this feature.

 
3. CONCLUSION
The intranet has grown rapidly with features like collaborative communication, integrating business
processes etc. With these extensive benefits, organizations came to know its value and started implementing
in a wide range. In communication and information aspects, an intranet is productive in socialization and
finding information. It is an information system that utilizes internet technology. The success of intranet
relies on user acceptance and also the external factors including task interdependence, task equivocality, and
web experience affect the usage of an intranet. Therefore, intranet architecture should be simple such that an
employee can find the right information quickly. Issues like an unstable design and insufficient groundwork
have affected the intranet acceptance. Poorly designed and managed intranets damage the circulation of
knowledge, creates mistrust, and have a bad customer relationship. Even though there are several successful
stories, many users have lost their faith. Because, they lack better intranet design which helps to improve
organizational performance.
Most of the studies have focused on knowledge management, security, quality, usage etc. But it is
not sufficient for the present day needs of organizations. Since the intranets are becoming more collaborative,
organizations should design intranets for long-term achievements. Most of the companies are implementing
intranet without following any strategy or we can say that they are confused with numerous intranet tools
available in market. There is no standard design to follow for developing intranet. Due to this organizations
fail in designing a better intranet.
In this study, we present 9 design strategies for intranet which can fit for both large and small
organizations. In the case of small organizations, a single person may play different roles, the intranet tool
may have less features when compared to those of large organizations and remote accessibility may or may
not be useful basing on the needs. We explained about the strategies in detail and how they are helpful for the
organization. We conclude that for greater organization benefits these strategies must be followed while
designing intranet. In this paper, our approach was to propose and speculate design strategies for the intranet.
We did not endeavor to accept it here and accordingly future exploration ought to test and refine these
strategies experimentally.

REFERENCES
[1] V. S. Lai, “Intraorganizational communication with intranets,” Communications of the ACM, vol/issue: 44(7), pp.
95-100, 2001.
[2] M. Edenius and J. Borgerson, “To manage knowledge by intranet," Journal of Knowledge Management, vol/issue:
7(5), pp. 124-136, 2003.

Intranet Design Strategies (D. Rohith Roshan)

944  ISSN: 2088-8708

[3] P. Raeth and S. Smolnik, “Antecedents and consequences of corporate weblog usage in the intranet: A process
perspective,” System Sciences (HICSS), 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on. IEEE, 2010.
[4] L. E. Chang and S. P. Lin, “Newcomers' Socialization by Intranet System,” Computer and Information Science
(ICIS), 2011 IEEE/ACIS 10th International Conference on. IEEE, 2011.
[5] G. Fuxiang, et al., “A Security Architecture for Intranet Based on Security Area Division,” Intelligent Information
Technology and Security Informatics (IITSI), 2010 Third International Symposium on. IEEE, 2010.
[6] R Hall, “Agile Design on Your Intranet,” http://www.intranetconnections.com/blog/ agile-design-on-your-intranet/,
2014.
[7] H. Benbya, et al., “Corporate portal: a tool for knowledge management synchronization,” International Journal of
Information Management, vol/issue: 24(3), pp. 201-220, 2004.
[8] S. Lee and B. G. Kim, “Factors affecting the usage of intranet: A confirmatory study,” Computers in Human
Behavior, vol/issue: 25(1), pp. 191-201, 2009.
[9] R. Cozijn, et al., “Structuring job related information on the intranet: An experimental comparison of task vs. an
organization-based approach,” Journal of technical writing and communication, vol/issue: 37(2), pp. 203-216,
2007.
[10] Leung, Hareton KN, “Quality metrics for intranet applications,” Information & Management, vol/issue: 38(3), pp.
137-152, 2001.
[11] Neill, W. D. and James E. R., “Intranet portals: marketing and managing individuals’ acceptance and
use,” Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), vol/issue: 20(2), pp. 147-157, 2012.

BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS

D. Rohith Roshan was born in Andhra Pradesh, India. He received his BCA degree from
Acharya Nagarjuna University in March 2011, and his MCA degree from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Kakinada in June 2014. He is currently pursuing MTech in Computer
Science and Engineering at K L University, Guntur. His research interests include Software
Engineering and Data Mining. This article is his first publication.
Email: [email protected]

K. Subba Rao received his M.Tech degree in Software Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Anantapur in 2004 and PhD in Software Engineering from Acharya
Nagarjuna University in May 2015. Presently, he is working as Professor in K L University,
Guntur. His areas of interest are Software Engineering, Data Mining, Cloud Computing and
Computer Networks. He published about 14 articles in the above area.
Emails: [email protected], [email protected]

IJECE Vol. 6, No. 3, June 2016 : 936 – 944