Imagine a world where your internal communications team has the power to transform your corporate intranet into a dynamic, engaging hub—a place where employees can connect, collaborate, and stay informed. It brings your brand to life, making your employees feel at home, and acts as the greatest tool in your kit for executing brilliant initiatives to fulfil your internal brand and culture strategy. But this world is only possible without dependency on IT teams for routine updates and changes. Maybe you slog through complicated processes, continuously raising tickets for an outdated system or have to go back and forth on the smallest of design changes. It's not fun for anyone, and in the modern era, you deserve more freedom.

In this article, we explore how internal communications can take full ownership of their corporate internet to make their dream a reality in a way that keeps your IT teams on side with your wants and needs.

The Role of the Corporate Intranet

Corporate intranets are more than just an internal communication tool; they've become central hubs for delivering content, fostering culture, and driving employee engagement. When work is at the centre of all our jobs and workplaces, a good intranet revolves around making work easier, so employees can be less stressed and more engaged. To maximize effectiveness, an intranet must be managed and controlled by the internal communications team, enabling them to swiftly respond to organizational needs and changes. As we all know, miscommunication is the downfall of many businesses, which can be traced back to a disconnect between the information teams want to put out and the systems they have available.

The Need for Site Management Tools

Traditionally, managing an intranet has required constant IT intervention for tasks such as adding new pages, updating navigation, or uploading media assets. Over-reliance on IT creates bottlenecks, slowing down communications and limiting the team’s ability to execute their strategies effectively. This harms every employee's experience within the organisation, creating frustration for comms, HR and IT teams alike. This breakdown between teams impacts productivity like any other, and getting creative to overcome these obstacles can lead to wasted business investment and further wedge driven between comms and IT teams as new solutions are found, presented and rejected. 

Therefore, one central, robust intranet CMS and site management tool is essential. This empowers the internal communications team to take full control of their intranet, ensuring that it aligns with their strategic communication objectives, updating and maintaining it as a solution over time.

Features of an Effective Intranet CMS: 

1. No-Code or Low-Code Content Production: The CMS should offer templates and easy creation of different content types, such as news, announcements, blogs, and events. This means content can be created quickly without coding knowledge required to produce or put live while maintaining brand consistency.
2. Customisable IA: Communications teams can design and deploy new content areas that align with their strategic goals, enhancing the site’s functionality and relevance as it grows.
3. Governing Content Creators: Empower department heads and team leaders to manage their pages. This decentralized approach allows individuals to take ownership of their content without needing advanced technical skills, fostering a more collaborative and responsive intranet environment. At the same time, you should be able to initiate workflows and governance frameworks, which means internal comms always has final sign-off to keep things consistent.
4. Integrated Digital Asset Management (DAM): An integrated asset management system allows users to seamlessly manage and deploy multiple digital assets. Communications teams can upload media assets, such as images and videos, on any page as needed, creating more engaging content on their terms. 

Benefits of Independent Intranet Management

• Increased Efficiency: Communications teams can operate more efficiently by eliminating the need to involve another department in implementing routine updates and changes. This autonomy enables quicker responses to organizational needs and ensures the intranet remains current and relevant.
• Enhanced Flexibility: Direct control over the intranet allows teams to adapt and refine their strategies in real time. Internal comms teams can quickly implement new content, adjust navigation, and update visuals to align with evolving organizational goals and priorities.
• Improved Collaboration: Empowering department heads and team leaders to manage their pages fosters a more collaborative environment. It encourages greater involvement, ownership and engagement with your digital workplace. 
• Streamlined Asset Management: An integrated asset management system simplifies managing and deploying digital assets. This streamlined approach reduces the complexity of content creation. It ensures that media assets are utilized effectively across the site and can be managed from one central repository should they need to be updated. 

Conclusion

The ability of internal communications teams to independently manage, maintain, and support their corporate intranet is crucial for maximizing its effectiveness as a strategic tool. By leveraging a comprehensive CMS, communications teams can take control of their intranet, enhance efficiency, and execute their strategies with greater agility. What you may not learn from your IT team is that they want this autonomy for you, too. They want time back from managing your digital workplace to further their initiatives, and it's only through an effective, secure system they can do this.

At Akumina, we are committed to providing solutions that empower teams to achieve their goals and drive overall organizational success. Book a tailored demo with our team to learn more about our intranet CMS and supporting tools, which can help transform your intranet into your organization's most powerful internal asset.