Any business looking to invest in new hardware, software or indeed any major asset or piece of equipment needs to be sure they’re getting value for money. Return on investment (ROI) has become the standard measurement for doing just that. It’s a simple equation that seeks to measure the amount of ROI relative to the investment’s cost. And if the numbers are on the plus side, then clearly it makes sense to go ahead as the business will get more out than it puts in. And so, if you’ve been charged with implementing a company intranet, then no doubt intranet ROI considerations will be an important part of your submission to the board and senior managers. The truth is it’s not easy to measure the ROI of an intranet, after all, it’s not like a photocopier or other piece of equipment – it’s an imperfect science with hard and soft benefits.However, an intranet still needs to able to prove its value before the organization is likely to spend any money and so in this post, we look at some of the factors you need to include when quantifying your intranet ROI.
Intranet ROI Hard Savings
When it comes to demonstrating a good intranet ROI, it’s all about dollars and cents. And the intranet will deliver a range of easy to measure, hard cost savings. These include the following:
Reduction In Paper Costs
With all company information and data being accessible online via the intranet, many companies see a significant dip in their paper costs. The fact is there just isn’t the same need for paper when company information and data are all available online.
Smaller Printing And Distribution Budgets
In our experience, companies with intranets report a reduction in printing and distribution costs. With all company-critical information being published online on the intranet, there’s no need for hard copies to be printed and distributed to different teams or offices. 
And for those companies with multiple office locations, sometimes over great distances, these cost savings can be significant. The same applies to staff newsletters, which again can be simply published online.
Lower Contact Information and Employee Directory Costs
The staff directory feature on the intranet will immediately replace paper versions. How much time and effort, as well as printing and distribution costs, go into maintaining the staff directory? Online publishing on the intranet will do away with the need for print and spreadsheet distribution.
Streamlined Business Processes
The intranet enables the completion of tasks and processes online via a web form. The intranet then automatically routes the form to the correct staff member for action. And so processes that once involved a number of steps and the filling out of paper forms or emails can now be completed with a just few clicks of the mouse. 
Think about staff members booking annual leave, submitting expenses claims or ordering stationery. With the intranet, staff members can use a self-service approach to complete all these processes (and many more) online. These benefits are not just available to internal customers either. Many companies have introduced order form systems with their suppliers, simplifying and speeding up procurement and other processes.
Reduction In Email Usage
Migration of traditional email communications to the intranet can also result in hard cost savings. Moving relevant communications to the intranet creates hard savings in terms of server space, employee time costs and ongoing management and maintenance costs.
Simplified Information Sharing
A great many of MyHub’s clients report that simplified internal content management is a big money saver following the introduction of an intranet. The costs of storage and business file sharing solutions can quickly add up. With a cloud intranet such as MyHub, users have unlimited data storage included in the monthly fee which makes it a very cost-effective option. 
What’s more, you can embed G Suite or Office 365 directly in your intranet, enabling documents and files to be worked on simultaneously and in real time by multiple users, with the intranet automatically updating and backing up the source document.
And so when it comes to calculating the dollar and cents savings to be had with the introduction of an intranet, there are plenty of hard savings to be had. Take for example printing and distribution and review your total costs over, say, the last 12 months. How much was related to internal information and print materials? The figure you come up with is a potential cost saving that can be attributed to the intranet. Perform a similar exercise with the other savings categories and you will begin to build up a strong intranet ROI case for an intranet.
Intranet ROI Soft Savings
It is, however, perhaps in the area of soft savings, which are not quite so easy to quantify, where the intranet will make its most significant impact. Certainly, our customers regularly report to us on the enhanced competitiveness and improved customer service the intranet has delivered to their business. Other customers stress the intranet’s value in terms of better internal communications and collaboration, improved employee engagement and achieving more efficiencies in operating costs.
Some of these softer savings lend themselves more easily to being quantified than others. Take for example employee engagement. The intranet can have a big impact on improving the organization’s levels of engagement. The quizzes and surveys feature is a great way to involve staff and get their views on any number of issues: from the new corporate branding, a revised safety and health at work policy or ideas on a team bonding event. What’s more, team or company blogs and news pages can be used to develop two-way conversations with staff members. Allowing comments, the sharing of insights and ideas in an open forum is a clear demonstration of the value you place as a business on listening to and acting on staff’s ideas. And why not introduce a formal staff recognition program on the intranet? A simple thank you and public acknowledgment for a job well done is a great motivator for staff.
These are just some of the ways that an intranet can enhance employee engagement and there are some tangible organizational benefits to doing so. Research from Gallup has found that businesses with highly engaged employees have a 10 percent higher customer satisfaction rating, 21 percent higher productivity, and 22 percent higher profitability than those businesses with low engagement rates. Now, these statistics all add up to dollar and cents savings that can be attributed to your intranet. It may not be so easy to put an actual figure on them, but the savings are just as real. And the same logic can be applied to the other softer savings we identified above.
MyHub Intranet: Delivering Value For Money
All of these fantastic benefits and hard and soft savings are available to you for the very modest fee of just $99 per month. And that includes unlimited data storage and numbers of users. What’s more, the MyHub intranet is so easy to set up and manage that you don’t even need an internal IT resource. Just a few hours of your time is all that’s required to have a fully functioning, totally customized and unique intranet up and running in your business.
With these great business benefits on offer for such a modest investment of your time and resources, does it really matter if you haven’t assigned a definitive dollar amount to every single cost saving when determining the intranet’s ROI? Try out the MyHub offering with our 14-day free trial and see for yourself.
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