Social media adoption has accelerated on the corporate intranet, led by blogs, wikis and discussion forums. Despite a low cost of entry—often below $10,000—adopters are not reporting outstanding satisfaction with the investment, especially among the executive ranks, driven by inadequate planning and weak or non-existent business plans.

This data is contained in the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey, which included the participation of 561 organizations of all sizes from across the planet.

Cost of Intranet 2.0

Intranet 2.0 technology is cheap. Of those organizations that have implemented 2.0 tools, almost half have spent $10,000 or less on these tools:

• 46% have spent $10,000 or less
• 35% have spent between $10,000 and $100,000
• 19% have spent $100,000 or more

Satisfaction

Satisfaction levels with Intranet 2.0 tools is low:

• Only 29% of organizations rate the tool functionality as good or very good; 24% rate them as poor or very poor
• Satisfaction rates with executives is dangerously low: only 23% of executives rate the 2.0 tools as good or very good; 38%% rate them as poor or very poor

Barriers to implementation

Of those organizations that have not implemented 2.0 tools, lack of a business case, executive support, and IT support are seen as the top barriers:

• 33% of respondents cite lack of executive support as the greatest challenge
• 31% of respondents say lack of IT support is the greatest barrier to implementation
• 30% of respondents cite lack of a business case support as the greatest challenge

Recognizing that during times of economic downturn, organizations are seeking to discover new ways to make the most of their investments, but too many fail to understand the intranet's value and potential to increase business performance, Prescient’s next webinar in its monthly series will focus on developing a business case for internal web initiatives.

Join this free webinar to learn how to motivate executives to resource your intranet or social media initiative.

·         Date: June 25, 2009

·         Location: Free Webinar 12 pm EDT

See Winning support for your intranet/intranet 2.0 initiative (free webinar)

An all too common complaint from web managers is that their website does not enjoy the support from executives it deserves.

But is lack of support the fault of the executives who fail to grasp internet value, or the web manager who fails to talk their talk and present the website value in a concise, impactful way that will motivate executives to support the web?

The fault lies squarely with the web manager, according to a practical, helpful white paper “Best Practices for Creating a Web Strategy: What Web Managers Need to Know,” produced by J. Boye, a vendor-neutral analyst firm.

“The key is to make the problems tangible enough, so they can be understood by executives who generally have little web understanding,” say the report's authors Dorthe R. Jespersen and Peter E. B. Nissen of J. Boye. “It is crucial to speak the language of top management. Focus on high-level business problems, rather than low level problems and technical details. Such details may be problematic in the everyday life of the web manager but they are of little importance to the organisation’s key tasks.”

In addition to the helpful suggestions on how to present the strategy to executives in a meaningful manner, the report provides many practical ideas and examples on how to avoid the six common pitfalls of developing a web strategy, which the authors identify as:

1. Creating the strategy without documentation on users
2. Not involving internal stakeholders
3. Not understanding your executives as an audience
4. Not following up on whether the strategy brought results and revising the strategy accordingly
5. Describing the strategy in abstract and vague terms
6. Making the strategy too operational

The document makes a strong case for the benefit of utilizing the services of neutral, third-party expert to assist with the strategic plan, but it emphasizes the importance of having the web manager take responsibility for developing it.

“We don’t advise that you let someone else write your web strategy,” the authors observe. “You need to go through the process yourself, involving stakeholders along the way. If not, you will probably have a hard time implementing it because of lack of buy-in across the organisation and lack of knowledge of the strategy process inside the organisation.”

While most strategy books are targeted at the CEO-level, this 35-page report guides the web manager in creating a solid web strategy that speaks to the executive suite. Although the report is targeted mainly at the web managers for public websites, much of the advice will also apply to intranets.

The report is supported by research gathered from interviews with 19 European organizations—including governments, for-profit enterprises and NGOs—and draws on collected experiences with web strategy from several conferences and a European community of practice with 250+ members facilitated by J. Boye.

Download the report Best Practices for Creating a Web Strategy: What Web Managers Need to Know.