1. Getting buy-in for your
intranet project
Tamsin Stanford, Senior Manager
Intranet Communications Strategy
Dynamic Intranets, 8 & 9 September 2011
2. About ANZ
ANZ is one of the largest companies in Australia and New Zealand and
a major international banking and financial services group.
• 32 countries inc. Australia, NZ, Asia, India, Pacific and US
• 170-year history
• 8 million customers worldwide
• 411,000 shareholders
• 48,000 employees
• Rated world's most sustainable bank by the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
• ANZ’s global headquarters rated 'world leader' in
environmentally sustainable design by Green Building Council of
Australia
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3. About ANZ’s intranet, Max
1998 IT creates ‘intranet’ for their use
1999 ‘Max’ is launched for whole of ANZ
2005 IT Governance Board aims to upgrade Max (1)
2007 Ownership moves from IT to Communications
2008 IT project aims to upgrade Max (2)
2009 Productivity Forum funds ‘Fix Max’ project in Communications
2009 IT and Communications create Roadmap, request funding (3)
2010 CEO makes ‘Fix Max’ project a permanent team
2010 CIO funds ‘Globalise and upgrade intranet’ business case (4)
2011 Deputy CEO becomes executive sponsor
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5. Previous attempts to secure buy-in
2005: Replace in-house publishing tool with SharePoint
• Too technology-focused, Governance Board too senior
• Intranet not yet seen as a critical business tool
2008: Replace intranet: part of ‘Enterprise Workplace’ strategy
• Too technology-focused and driven
• Organisational restructure refocused budgets
2009: Upgrade and globalise intranet: roadmap
• Driven by Corporate Communications but with IT as partner
• Funding request bounces between divisional committees
2010: Upgrade and globalise intranet: business case
• Driven by IT but with Corporate Communications as partner
• Priority given to customer-facing technologies
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6. Turn challenges into opportunities
Challenge Opportunity
Change of senior leader • What was their previous intranet like?
Are they supportive of change?
• Get in front of them with your story
Org restructure • Better IA can future-proof the intranet
• People directory will help people ‘find
the expert’
Productivity drive or cost • Use specific examples to show time or
cutting cost savings
IT changes such as • Will old systems still work? Will
system upgrades additional integration be required?
A multitude of • What is the risk of duplicate content or
repositories are used for costs of maintenance, training and
content support for other repositories?
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7. Building the business case
1. Research early and measure, measure, measure
2. Tie it to your organisation’s business strategy
3. Make it real
4. Provide a summary
5. Be consistent in your language
Objectives Opportunities
• Productivity 1. Connecting people
• Operational Risk 2. connecting applications
• Super regional 3. connecting information
• Simplicity
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8. Numbers are vital
User Centred Design
• High emphasis on UCD methodologies and including users from
the start - increases chances of getting it right
Lean Six Sigma
• Define, Measure (and measure, and measure!), Analyse,
Improve, Control
If you can, combine the two methodologies
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9. Numbers are vital: what can YOU measure?
Productivity costs:
• Calls to internal help desks if information is hard to find
• Rework through incorrect content being used
• Time spent completing key tasks
Intranet publishing costs:
• Training – not just the cost of facilitator, but the cost of
participants being away from their desks
• Support – each questions asked of our intranet help desk costs
the business money
Technology costs:
• Upgrading a potentially old platform
• Integrating an old platform with newer applications
• Businesses funding their own one-off solution
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10. What we measured
Centralised publishing team
+
Content improvements
+
Information Architecture improvements
+
Reduced support requirements
= $ millions in productivity savings
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11. The intranet is a vital part of ANZ operations
Site statistics (30 day period)*
• 11.1 million intranet page views
• 1,400,000 Australia Branch/Call Centre page views
What our staff have told us:
• 90% of staff go to the intranet first to find out what is happening at ANZ**
• The best source of truth that helps me do my job is: “Max”**
• 50% of respondents’ jobs would be affected in less than 1 hour if the intranet
was unavailable***. For customer-facing staff this figure is 70%.
Top five things accessed on the intranet***:
• Processes and manuals 73%
• Group news and announcements 71%
• Policies 71%
• Support information (HR, Risk, Finance, Comms) 70%
• Forms 67%
Sources:
* Omniture reporting, 21 Jan - 20 Feb 2011
** Group Communications Survey, Nov 2010 (1962 responses, all divisions)
*** Global Intranet User Satisfaction Survey, April 2009 (1370 responses, all divisions)
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12. Gathering user support
• Make use of your biggest critics
• Keep the dialogue (and the research) going
• Don’t assume everyone will have the same ‘triggers’
• Create personas to show you understand users’ needs
What channels can you use?
• Elevator pitch
• Discussion forums
• Staff magazine
• Existing intranet homepage
• Online survey
• Focus groups
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13. Fifth time lucky?
Funding from IT stopped in 2010 after the business case was
completed.
Since then, we have focussed on the root cause of lack of funding
and interest and:
• Changed the executive sponsor we were pitching to
• Held tailored one-on-one discussions with senior leaders
• Focused on cost of proliferation of small projects
• Finalised a governance strategy
• Resurrected discussions with website team
• Generated excitement by talking about it at every opportunity
and showing persona-based screenshots
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