Digital Workplace and Intranet Employee Benchmarking: The Worldwide Intranet Challenge

From the first 20 organisations who have participated in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) (TM), the most effective intranet as assessed by their own users belongs to Wyeth MENA (Middle East North Africa region based in Dubai) - and they are pretty happy about it!

Magdy Youssef (L), e-Business & CRM Projects Manager and Trevor Parsons, Associate, IT director with an impressive banner highlighting the intranet's success.

Who is Wyeth MENA?

Wyeth MENA is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and was a division of Wyeth (incidentally the Wyeth head office intranet is ranked number 4 in the WIC). Pfizer has recently acquired Wyeth. Pfizer/Wyeth is the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company and provide a portfolio of products and medicines that support wellness and prevention, as well as treatment and cures for diseases across a broad range of therapeutic areas.

Worldwide Intranet Challenge rankings

The Wyeth MENA intranet received an overall score of 65.253% from their end users (the average score is 58.029%). In addition to this, the Wyeth MENA intranet was the number 1 ranked intranet from an end user perspective in the areas of:

Intranet look and feel
Intranet search
Intranet hierarchy
Discussing work topics
Providing feedback or comments about intranet content
Training (eg. manuals, online training)
Access to business applications
Training on using the intranet

The Wyeth MENA intranet is built using Webbuilder.

Comment

It is no coincidence in my experience that having an effective search correlates to the value that end users place on an intranet. See my earlier blog post about the importance end users place on finding information. Wyeth MENA received very good feedback from their end users about the ease of finding informatio. For the questions relating to finding information, this is how Wyeth MENA ranked:

I can find the information I need on the intranet - Ranked number 2
The intranet menus help me find the information I need - 2
The intranet search helps me find the information I need - 2
I know where I am in the intranet hierarchy - 1

Providing training on using the intranet is often an area that is neglected or overlooked and yet is a quick an easy way to increase the value of your intranet. For example, it may be that the search tool you have is OK but your end users don't how to use it. Wyeth MENA have obviously addressed this requirement. With a score of 2.443 out of 4 (the average score being 1.630), they were clearly ranked number 1 for the question:

I have received training on using the intranet

An area that is equally important but is not in fact addressed by the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (which is only interested in end user opinion), is gaining management buy-in and support for your intranet. Magdy Youssef (e-Business and CRM Projects Manager) clearly believes this is a key to implementing a successful intranet and it seems that Wyeth MENA have succeeded in this department.

Related to this is promoting and marketing of the Intranet. Again this is not addressed in the WIC, but it is another area that is often neglected by intranet managers when planning their intranet strategy. Often a 'build it and they will come' attitude is prevalent. Again it appears that Magdy and his team have successfully met this requirement. I was very surprised to receive the above photo from Magdy letting everyone know about Wyeth MENA's WIC success.

Interview with Magdy Youssef, e-Business and CRM Projects Manager

What techniques do you use to generate repeat business?
Techniques used include:

Gaining management support
Coordinated marketing plan
Maximizing the value of the homepage
Automatically loading homepage
Have your say
Monthly newsletter
Produce Regular Content
MENA Discussion Board
Brochures and Roll ups
E-mail links to intranet
Run surveys
Internal contest
‘killer applications’
Promoting via the business
Staff induction

What tasks are done to ensure the intranet is maintained?
Regular monthly tasks include:

Monitor usage statistics
Review intranet content
Rewrite key content
Mentor intranet authors
Build relationships with other teams
Meet countries needs
Support strategic projects
Build team skills and knowledge

What is the most popular use or feature of your intranet?
Poll,News,MENA spotlight,MENA discussion board

How do you make sure the intranet continues to meet your staff needs?
Getting feedback using our feedback form, conduct survey every 6 month to track the satisfaction level Provide relevant contents according to the job role, department as well as Geographical locations

How do you measure the success of your intranet?
Passive: Web trend Active: Primary survey. Focus group and face to face meeting

What are your plans for the future?
-Provide MENA intranet with specific Name ( Branding) -Add more relevant messages by segmenting the staff needs - Add more fun by running internal contest - Build one page for new staff to hold all the staff induction materials. to be the primary source of information @ new comers mind

What do you see as your biggest challenges in increasing intranet acceptance and use?
Management engagement to the Intranet services

What advice can you pass on to other intranet teams?
Get the maximum use of Home page, keep it simple and consistent.

The Wyeth MENA Home page

The following image shows the home page. It follows Magdy's guideline of being simple and consistent.

The Wyeth MENA Home page (click here for a bigger image)

How many people are using the intranet?

It's not only the positive feedback from the Worldwide Intranet Challenge that shows that the Wyeth MENA end users are happy with their intranet, they are also voting with their fingers. The following diagram shows the dramatic increase in page visits over a 3 year period. As can be seen from the diagram, when management support was obtained, things really took off.

And who is responsible?

Left to right are Vivika De leon,Trevor Parsons, Manar Hassan, Joe Henien, Baher Massoud, Vanessa Edmunds, Magdy Youssef, Hassan Ali

Other members of the team include Anca Davies, Claudia Burkley, Hala Abo Gazalah, Hamam Haridy, Hassan Ali, Hershey Mendoza, Joseph Tresa, Mark Allen, May Caro, Mayola D'Souza, Samantha Colaco, and Sini Kurian.

How do you think your intranet compares to Wyeth MENA?

So how do you think your intranet is traveling? The Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) allows Intranet owners to obtain feedback from their end users through a web based survey and then compare this feedback with other participating organisations.

Some comments from organisations who have already participated in the WIC include:

"extremely useful results for validation of development plan and to support engagement and change management." - Dominic Chiappe, Lloyds Register

"It was very useful and I would recommend it to any intranet manager." - Margherita Buoso, European Space Agency

"This survey is a good idea and will allow us to benchmark ourselves against other companies. We have already started to use the survey feedback to make improvements." - Barbara Peters, Wyeth

So why not register now, there is no cost to participate.