What can we learn from the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions?

After being evaluated for its Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision alongside 14 other vendors, Unily has been named a leader in the first-ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions.

What is a Magic Quadrant^™?

Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ research provides a graphical competitive positioning of technology providers in fast-growing markets. Offering an authoritative view on the landscape, a Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ identifies leaders, visionaries, niche players, and challengers in a technology landscape which considers how well technology providers are executing against their current vision and how well they’re positioned for tomorrow.

Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well-positioned for tomorrow. Visionaries understand where the market is going or have a vision for changing market rules, but do not yet execute well. Niche Players focus successfully on a small segment, or are unfocused and do not out-innovate or outperform others. Challengers execute well today or may dominate a large segment, but do not demonstrate an understanding of market direction.

What is the 2023 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions?

The first of its kind, this report applies a uniform and robust set of evaluation criteria to vendors within the Intranet Packaged Solutions market. Providing an extensive assessment of fifteen IPS vendors in the space and offering the latest market trends, the report offers advice for insight-informed decision-making.

At Unily, we think the establishment of the first-ever Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ in our field recognizes that organizations are under increasing pressure to engage and retain employees through improved employee experience. It also encourages application leaders to examine intranet packaged solutions for their ability to support employees on the road to the future of work​, while providing a newfound authority to the Intranet Packaged Solutions market. We believe this will catalyze further focus and investment in the space.

Why is this important?

In the era of employee experience, Unily sees this as a landmark moment for the market in which we operate. We think this report will elevate the role of the intranet in employee experience, and provide an invaluable source for those currently managing or looking to improve their intranet.

We envisage that prospective customers in the market will use the Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ to get quickly educated about our market’s competing technology providers and their ability to deliver on what end users require. We also believe they’ll consult it to understand how our market’s technology providers are competitively positioned and the strategies they are using to compete for end-user business. Finally, we predict that the report will offer a comprehensive comparison of provider’s strengths and challenges with a customer’s specific needs.

Our take: What does it mean for intranets in 2024?

The best platforms need to pack a broad punch

Looking across six use cases and evaluating thirteen critical capabilities, the 2023 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions confirmed that the best employee experience platforms need to do a lot. While our market is often focused on communications and employee engagement, other areas including employee services, offering an application portal, providing knowledge services, work management, and catering to frontline work are all of vital importance to a strong IPS too.

A broad set of capabilities is essential to meet the well-established and emerging needs of the modern and varied workforce, especially for larger and more complex organizations.

Don't forget the frontline

In the employee experience era, factory workers, delivery drivers, and retail staff need more than just mobile experience. They need a stronger solution; one offering work management, easy access to the tools they need, and intuitive insights tailored to their work day.

The intranet packaged solutions market may think they’ve cracked the frontline worker nut – but there’s still a lot to do. Deskless work is more diverse and varied across a wide range of verticals, and we’re still learning how we can optimize solutions to meet their expectations.

Looking past the AI Hype

While some vendors in the IPS space are offering flamboyant features powered by artificial intelligence and promising the employee engagement panacea, the AI arms race could be clouding the path to real value.

The vendors in the market who are able to offer AI-infused employee experiences that power real-world enhancements while keeping complexity at bay will have the edge. Instead of chasing the AI dragon, IPS providers should make employee-centricity the north star on their path to innovation, and create solutions with EX at their core, delivering real-world benefits and value.

Seamless integration is a must

A strong integrations strategy for all the business applications your people need to stay in the flow of things is still paramount. Beyond communications, bringing these experiences together in a single pane of glass is critical to delivering what your people need.

In the modern age, strength of integrations with collaboration, productivity, employee services, and work management tooling signifies strength of an Intranet Packaged Solution. With comprehensive integrations with Microsoft, Google, or ServiceNow stacks a prerequisite today, vendors will be expected to broaden their horizons to integrate even more critical business applications.

Having the freedom to extend

It’s clear to see that the most mature intranet packaged solutions have transcended their out-of-the-box roots, offering the ability to expand for customized customer requirements – without the need for customization.

Vendors who offer a powerful extensibility framework offer enhanced autonomy to their customers, and elevated experiences for employees. Primed to allow enterprises to go beyond the box, these frameworks offer the power to configure and shape every employee platform to fit like a glove.

Intranet Packaged Solutions to optimize employee experiences

It’s an exciting time for the Intranet Packaged Solutions market, and looking ahead to the future, we believe the bar will continue to be raised to meet the growing needs of employees and their enterprises. Wide-ranging components for platform extensibility, unifying integrations, and dedicated employee experience innovation will pave the way for a more empowered, happier workforce.

We’ve got our sights set high. It’s time to shape the employee experience era for the better.