Your SharePoint Intranet: A Wise Investment?

Most employee intranets are underwhelming. They have cluttered, outdated designs, irrelevant content, and limited features that fail to engage modern workers.

Employees struggle to find information. Teams do not collaborate effectively. Remote staff feel disconnected.

Poor intranet experiences lead to frustrated employees who waste time hunting for resources. Cross-functional work becomes difficult. Company culture suffers with lacklustre engagement. This results in disengaged workers, high turnover, and lost productivity that hits the bottom line.

Gerry Brimacombe, a SharePoint specialist, examines if a SharePoint intranet justifies the investment. He covers business impacts of bad intranets and practical steps to build effective ones using SharePoint features.

What You Will Learn

• Core problems with traditional intranets and how SharePoint addresses them through modern site templates
• Calculating return on investment using time savings metrics from better search and navigation
• Setting up hub sites and communication sites for scalable intranet structure
• Integrating SharePoint with Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections for hybrid work engagement
• Using SharePoint analytics and Viva Insights to measure intranet adoption and effectiveness
• Best practices for content governance to keep intranet fresh and relevant
• Strategies to migrate from legacy systems to SharePoint without disrupting users

Key Takeaways

1. Quantify intranet ROI with simple formulas. Focus on time saved per employee per week from improved findability, then multiply by staff numbers and hourly rates for clear business case.
2. Start with hub sites for organization. They provide consistent navigation across department sites and enable targeted audiences without complex permissions.
3. Prioritize mobile-first design. Use SharePoint's responsive layouts and Viva Connections to ensure remote and hybrid workers access key info on any device.
4. Track usage with built-in analytics. Monitor page views, search queries, and bounce rates in SharePoint to iteratively improve low-performing sections.

About the Speaker

Gerry Brimacombe is a SharePoint architect and consultant specializing in intranet solutions for Microsoft 365 environments. He contributes regularly to the Collab365 community and helps organizations transform outdated intranets into productive employee hubs. His experience spans large-scale SharePoint deployments across industries.

Who Should Watch This

This session suits Microsoft 365 administrators evaluating SharePoint for a new or refreshed intranet. You will benefit if your current intranet causes productivity drags or if you need data to justify investment to stakeholders.

IT pros managing hybrid work environments will find value in integration tips with Teams and Viva. Those planning migrations from on-premises or third-party intranets get practical migration strategies.

Skip if you already run a mature SharePoint intranet with strong analytics. The content focuses on foundational justification and setup rather than advanced customization.