What Is an Intranet?

Organizations across the world send thousands of engagement surveys with questions detailing key benefits that might help improve employee experience. ‘A better intranet' doesn't get top billing—it barely registers. But it probably should.

As teams continue to work faster and become more distributed than at any point in history, it's never been more crucial to have a company home in the cloud.

While we redefine and reimagine the employee experience for the modern era, it follows that we should also redefine the tools and scaffolding that support it.

So, what is an intranet? How has it evolved, and most importantly, what will it become?

What is an intranet?

An intranet is a private network dedicated to a single organization and its employees. The details of how that network is constructed and deployed have changed over time.

In years past, an intranet would be deployed on the business premises (on-prem) as a Local Area Network (LAN). In contrast, modern intranets are often deployed using cloud architecture.

So, while a few structural elements have changed over time, the essence remains the same. An intranet is most accurately defined by who it's designed for, and who has access to it.

What’s the difference between an intranet and the internet?

An intranet is a closed system. It's owned, operated by, and only accessible to members of its organization.

The internet is an open system. It isn’t owned or operated by any one single entity. Anyone can access it as long as they have a connection.

What is the difference between an intranet and an extranet?

Sometimes there's a need for structured, secure communication and information sharing between an organization and third parties. Extranet software solves for this by designating a walled portion of an organization's intranet network to this sort of limited third-party access.

Think of it like a barbecue: only a select group of guests are invited to the barbecue, and an even smaller group is allowed inside the house.

For example:

• Contractors often need access to an organization’s people and resources in order to do their best work, but they don’t have the same level of access to company personnel and resources that a full-time employee might.
• Agencies frequently work closely with in-house personnel. In these cases, quick communication and collaboration can be crucial. Extranets can allow members of an organization to connect with agency members as easily as they would a full-time colleague.
• Vendors might use extranet software to make orders or check in on things like availability and prices.
• Partners of a business might gain extranet access as part of a collaborative project, to view information, analyze metrics, or to connect with specific employees, for example.
• Customers might use extranets without even knowing it. If you’ve ever checked your order status, attended an online course, or gained access to a members-only section of a website, you’ve used an extranet.
• Patients use an extranet to access healthcare information, schedule appointments, request prescription refills, contact their healthcare providers, and more.
• Board members of an organization are sometimes granted access to a company extranet, where they can view and share key information.

Even though they’re not often thought of as an extranet, Slack's ' Slack Connect ' feature or ‘ Guest Access ’ in Microsoft Teams are both examples of how an extranet works in a modern context.

These features allow you to invite someone who isn't part of your organization to participate with select employees, and only in a specially designated area of the platform.

How has the intent behind intranets changed over time?

Although Intranet technology predates the 1990s, it was during this time that it made its way out of labs and into a growing range of organizations.

1990s

Employee intranets in the 1990s could be summarized by a sense of inflexibility, limited use cases, limited features—and just like internet sites of the time—compromising on design and user experience.

During this time, intranet networks were fundamentally top-down communication tools, with a collection of links and limited avenues for relay chats. They were used for things like:

• Posting company policies
• Rudimentary document storage
• Basic communication

2000s

During the dot-com era and the internet heyday of the early and mid-2000s, traditional intranets experienced an equally stark transformation.

Instead of one-way flows of information, interactive intranets emerged.

Instead of being built in-house for a narrow range of use cases, turn-key intranet solutions built by specialists appeared. Tools like Sharepoint made their debut as configurable point solutions.

2010s

Just as they were the golden years of the “web 2.0” social media movement, the 2010s also brought along the birth of the social intranet.

Throughout the 2010s, interactivity, not just between employees and the internet, but also between the intranet and other third-party software integrations, defined intranet development.

2020s

If the 2010s were the birthplace of the modern digital workplace, the 2020s are its proving ground.

In the late 2010s and early 2020s, needs for real-time communication evolved into needs for real-time collaboration.

As a result, the 2020s are characterized by a focus on communication, collaboration, and success for both co-located and remote employees.

Advantages and disadvantages of an intranet

Much has changed since the early days of intranet platform development, and nearly any modern intranet solution is equipped to address familiar disadvantages of older intranets. But each solution takes a slightly different approach, and as time goes on, new benefits and drawbacks emerge.

Common advantages of an intranet

Employee engagement

Intranets can’t solve an employee engagement crisis on their own, but they can provide a mechanism to address it. They can also provide a foundation to support ongoing engagement.

Here are a few examples of ways intranets can and have been used to support employee engagement organization-wide.

Simple but important gestures

Here are some of the simplest ways to show that appreciation:

• Sending birthday wishes and reminders
• Celebrating work anniversaries
• Highlighting other company milestones

Celebrating employees and their contributions

Intranets offer several ways to celebrate those contributions and the people who make them, like:

• Employee spotlights
• Top-down recognition
• Peer recognition

Knowledge management and sharing

Effective knowledge sharing is one of the greatest challenges for organizations as they scale. Without a system of record, employees are burdened with dual responsibilities of finding the right information, and validating it as well.

A well-designed and thoughtfully implemented intranet can relieve some of this burden for employees, as well as leadership, by providing some essential tools.

A single source of truth

Employee productivity hinges on quick, reliable access to people, information, and other resources. Intranets can provide a single, structured source of truth employees trust.

Security

As a sizable number of employees work remotely now and will continue to for the foreseeable future, security’s importance only grows. With information so easily shared instantly across multiple mediums, it’s crucial to have tools in place to keep sensitive internal communications internal.

Collaboration tools

As collaboration continues moving out of the office and across the airwaves, it’s essential to have a wide range of tools to get your work done.

Corporate communication

Intranets are uniquely positioned as internal communication tools because they reach an entire employee population in a way that email, instant messaging, and even in-person interactions can’t always achieve.

Disadvantages of an intranet

Proprietary elements

Many elements will be unique and proprietary. This can mean challenges lay ahead if you ever need to transfer to a new system.

Management overhead

Even the best Intranets require thoughtful implementation and strategy.

Expense

An intranet can be an incredible value, but they’re almost never cheap. The purchase price is just a portion of the cost, which includes the human resource cost of onboarding, setup, customization, and ongoing maintenance.

Poor end user experience

End users are crucial stakeholders, and if end users don’t find the tool helpful, they’ll only use it as long as they’re obligated to.

Lack of speed

If users face a clunky experience every time they try to use the system, they’ll eventually abandon it.

Poor search optimization

Poor search performance is a common complaint for end users, especially with more dated intranets.

Clunky user interface

Features don’t solve problems automatically. It’s critical for those features to be accessible and intuitive for users with multiple backgrounds.

Stale content

If the same information is presented every time a user logs in, there’s less incentive to check back again.