4 ways to gain executive support for your new intranet

Make it happen

So you have an unloved and creaking Intranet in need of an overhaul, how can you get the support of executives to actually make it happen? Here’s a few tips to make that new employee portal a reality.

#1. Find out what the executives want

Take time to review annual reports, attend town halls and talk to organizational leaders about their goals so you truly understand the corporate strategy. Then try to align your objectives with theirs and the wider business strategy. If you can help the C-suite hit their targets they are much more likely to help you with yours.

#2. Develop a business case

Getting leadership buy-in is essential to move forward any major changing initiative. The CIO website suggests including these essential points in your business case:

• Rationale – why you are looking at this?
• Value proposition – what’s the value for the business, the benefits?
• Cost – what it is going to cost in terms of money, resources, people?
• Delivery – how it is going to be delivered and is it doable, what is the approach and risks?
• Accountability – who is accountable for the project such as sponsors, term committee, project manager, etc?
• Controls – how will you measure progress?

#3. Effectively present your ideas

To ensure you deliver an effective message to the leaders, adjust the presentation to be short, to the point and focus on three to five key benefits. Organizational leaders are short on time and do not want to hear the backstory, if they need all the details they will ask for them.

A half-baked idea won’t hold the attention of your executives, so you need to ensure it holds up to questioning and closer scrutiny. Consider the resources and budget required and how long you expect the project to take. Once you have the support of leadership, make it public - this will help to drive the initiative forward and get other stakeholders on board.

#4. Start Small

Don’t ask for the moon upfront, be prepared to start small and build from there. Focus on three to five quick wins, prove value and move up to the next phase. You need to make the most your leadership team’s enthusiasm so once you get the approval to move ahead – start delivering results within 90 days. A successful Intranet is never truly finished so plan for a strategy that continually moves the platform forward. Avoiding stagnation will stop you repeating the mistakes that had you shopping for a new Intranet in the first-place.

Invest in your enterprise

Executives are always striving to make their businesses more effective, staff more productive and the organization more competitive and a successful Intranet forms an essential part of that strategy. A considered and well-crafted project plan which aligns with the enterprises’ strategic goals will give your pitch the best chance of success.

After many years of creating customized portal solutions for clients around the world, experience showed us that no matter the size of the company or the vertical marketplace, most organizations share the same core intranet needs. Unily harnessed that knowledge to create a feature full Intranet as a Service solution, that delivers an award-winning user experience combined with a robust evergreen platform. Unily delivers a valuable, long-term solution that continues to grow and appreciate over time.

Unily is a best practice, but customizable, turnkey solution that can be deployed in a fraction of the time of a custom solution. Unily is a managed offering that includes SLA-backed support and regular free upgrades in response to changes in Office 365 and a customer-driven roadmap. The pricing is transparent, all-inclusive and fixed for the term of the contract providing predictable budget forecasts.