In some of my recent writings, I discuss the relationship between those professionals working in IT and those in other areas of a company's business, especially Communications. Having sat in or interacted with both over the past 15 years of my career, I've found myself having to advocate for the two groups
I've acknowledged the important role that IT plays with respect to creating the secure framework for a company's networks and systems, especially a company's intranet. I've also made the point that, at the end of the day, the business function of Communications — given their role in
As a result, I argue that it is critical for IT and Communications to
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Efficiency does not necessarily translate into effectiveness
Too often, I've seen situations where intranet technology decisions are wrong because the voice of those working in Communications wasn't considered. Recently, I've seen this occur in companies that attempt to use existing enterprise tools, originally designed for document management, workflow automation, or service delivery, as their primary intranet or employee communications platforms.
I understand the desire to try to do more with less and to maximize a company's use of tools in which they are already vested (and invested) in. But when tools are used for use cases that don't satisfy the intended goal, the end user ultimately suffers. In the case of intranets, the end user is the employee.
To the extent Communications is held accountable for employee engagement, they need tools designed for that purpose — not platforms built for something else. When tools not intended for communications are selected for communications purposes, time and money is wasted.
What makes for a great corporate intranet?
Before getting into the pros and cons of tools that do and don't work well for communications, let's talk about what makes for a great intranet.
Since I founded APPrise Mobile in the early 2010s, I've worked with hundreds of companies looking to improve the experience their employees have in getting to the information they need to do their jobs.
Those leading the charge on these projects (typically the Communications professionals in partnership with IT in some form or fashion), are responding to the concerns heard from the employees they serve that too much time is wasted trying to find content and things they need for their work among the many different tools and systems that exist in their organizations. They're addressing the needs of those employees who are out in the field and therefore can't access information because they don't sit in front of computers or have corporate email addresses. They're reacting to their inability to know how people are engaging with information or what they are looking for, because they don't have the analytics to give them this information so they can do their work better.
Corporate intranets can mean different things to different people. In my world, an intranet is a communications solution that provides an easy and organized way for employees to get to the information they need to do their jobs and live their lives. It provides them with the ability to do this in the way most convenient for them. Sometimes this is on a desktop computer; sometimes it's through their iPhone or Android. It allows companies to engage with their employees. In some instances, it allows for two-way communication and social interaction between employees. It can allow them to collaborate and exchange ideas.
Importantly, it serves as the single source of truth on behalf of a company and the entry point to easily access the tools and systems employees use on a day-to-day basis. For many companies, the intranet becomes a "front-door" for an employee's work day and centralizes the many aspects of their work experience.
On the content creation side, intranets allow those responsible for administering and creating content to have a simple and "single" place to create and upload all of their content and make it available across all communications channels. They don't (and shouldn't) require the involvement of someone with tech expertise to make structural changes to pages of information or to bottleneck the process of publishing content. Intranets should enable an easy governance approach so the job of communicating to large, dispersed workforces is controlled and the right people get the information they are supposed to see and receive. And it should provide in-depth analytics and AI content creation functionality that continuously learns, provides sentiment analysis and helps those creating the content to know what's resonating and what isn't.
Fortunately new forms of communications technology exist to accomplish all of this. Modern communications intranets offer new ways to get information to employees, communicate and engage with them, allow them to communicate and engage with each other, and have a better overall employee experience.
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A lesson learned the hard way: When enterprise tools are asked to do too much
So where am I going with this and what's the point?
For many enterprise organizations, Microsoft is the bedrock of their technology infrastructure. Similarly, ServiceNow has become commonplace for workflow automation and IT service management. This is both a blessing and a curse. Both dominate because they are already integrated and paid for (in almost all cases through the budget of IT). As a result, logic would have it that so long as these tools are already being paid for, why not attempt to use them for other purposes.
But such logic incorrectly prioritizes efficiency over effectiveness. And it doesn't satisfy the need and use case of the corporate intranet as a communications solution.
I don't want to come across as totally polemical. Many of these platforms are excellent when used for their intended purposes — such as document storage, collaboration, workflow automation, or service management. However, they are not designed to function as modern employee communications platforms. At best, they are tools that should integrate and/or work together with a purpose-built intranet, not replace it.
To illustrate this, I've consulted with several organizations implementing new intranets after discovering, often years later, that their existing tools failed to meet employee communication needs.
In one case, a large healthcare system relied on SharePoint as its intranet. Over time, different departments requested their own dedicated spaces for content, collaboration, and communications. With no centralized oversight, the result was a fragmented ecosystem with inconsistent branding, poor user experience, and little to no content governance. In some cases, outdated policies were copied and recirculated without updates, leading to conflicting information appearing in search results. Ultimately, the organization recognized the risks of this decentralized approach and sought a modern intranet solution.
In another case, a major utility company attempted to use a workflow automation platform as its primary intranet. While the system performed well for service delivery and HR/IT ticketing, it fell short as a communications platform. It lacked robust content distribution, meaningful engagement features, strong integrations beyond its own ecosystem and analytics to guide communications strategy. Any change or additional publishing needs by those in communications required advanced technical involvement and coding. Employees struggled to find relevant information, and communicators lacked tools to manage and measure impact. After years of investment, the organization ultimately moved on in search of a solution aligned with its original goal: improving the employee communications experience.
These are not isolated examples. Whether driven by convenience, cost efficiency, or persuasive vendor positioning, the outcome is often the same: trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
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Rethinking intranet decision making: A call to IT and Comms
It's time to stop thinking in terms of "what we already have" and start asking a far more strategic question: What are we actually trying to achieve?
If the answer involves fostering culture, streamlining internal communications and improving the employee experience, then the tools selected must be designed with those outcomes in mind.
The right tool for the wrong use case is the wrong tool. And when it comes to internal communications, hand-me-down platforms chosen for convenience or licensing efficiency simply don't cut it. Communications professionals — who are ultimately responsible for content, adoption, and impact — deserve purpose-built solutions that allow them to do their jobs effectively.
This is why IT and Communications must evaluate platforms together, from the start, with a shared understanding of success. When this happens, technology becomes more than infrastructure — it becomes a meaningful contributor to the employee experience. This is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity.
