Beyond features: how to future-proof your intranet platform provider

You can break this pattern during your intranet platform evaluation process by finding a strategic partner that evolves with your business. The intranet that perfectly meets your needs today may become obsolete tomorrow if your partner can’t keep pace with rapidly changing workplace technology and employee expectations.

Not too long ago, basic document repositories and rudimentary search capabilities were considered adequate. Today, employees expect personalized AI recommendations, seamless mobile experiences, and intuitive interfaces. Tomorrow will bring new expectations we can barely imagine now. As remote work, workflow automation, and AI capabilities continue to advance, you need an enterprise intranet platform that can evolve alongside your organization.

Effective intranet platform evaluation requires looking beyond current features to determine the vendor’s capacity for innovation, adaptation, and long-term support. The platform you select today will shape employee experience, communication effectiveness, and operational efficiency for years to come — not just based on what it can do now, but on how effectively it can evolve to meet your future needs.

Hidden costs of short-sighted intranet platform evaluation

Failing to future-proof your enterprise intranet platform creates costs that extend far beyond the initial implementation. What seems good enough today often becomes a liability tomorrow as workplace technology and employee expectations accelerate.

Consider how quickly technology standards have shifted. Features considered innovative just three years ago — basic mobile compatibility, simple document search — are now minimum requirements. Similarly, functionality such as basic AI assistance and personalized content will soon be considered bare necessities.

Employee disengagement and attrition could cost a median-size S&P 500 company between $228 million and $355 million a year in lost productivity (McKinsey).

This figure grows substantially when organizations implement technology that can’t adapt to changing workplace dynamics. When your intranet platform falls behind contemporary standards, the resulting friction actively undermines productivity, engagement, and organizational agility.

Finding the right intranet partner requires looking beyond what seems adequate for your current needs. The most significant hidden cost is in choosing a partner that lacks the vision and capability to evolve alongside rapidly changing workplace expectations. As consumer technology continuously reshapes what employees consider intuitive and efficient, your enterprise intranet platform must keep pace or risk becoming a technological relic that employees actively avoid.

Employee experience suffers when technology stagnates

Imagine a new employee is trying to find an important policy document on an outdated company intranet. They type in what they need, but nothing helpful appears. After clicking through several broken links and outdated pages, they give up and email three different people asking for help. Sound familiar?

Today’s employees bring consumer-grade technology expectations to work. When confronted with outdated intranet experiences, they become frustrated and disengaged. 

Stagnant intranets create costly issues that affect the employee experience:

• Poor navigation and content sprawl: Without proper content governance and information architecture that evolves with your organization, an intranet can feel like a maze.
• Search that doesn’t work: Employees can lose nearly 20% of their day searching for information — and expect smarter, faster results like they get from Google.
• Neglected mobile experience: Many workers now work remotely and on the go, which requires an intranet with a responsive UX across any device.
• Unable to integrate with other systems: Stagnant intranets that could once stand alone now struggle to integrate with the applications and tools your employees rely on, like business systems, communication apps, and HR self-service tools.
  Poor metrics and reporting: Legacy systems have outdated reporting that can’t effectively track content engagement, user adoption, and departmental usage, making it difficult for leadership to make data-driven decisions.

When your intranet platform fails to keep up with the needs of its users, your entire organization suffers. As a result:

• Employees use outside resources: Rather than fumbling through outdated resources and broken links, employees find other workarounds outside the system.
• Communication becomes fragmented: Some users may not trust the intranet and could communicate through other channels causing communication gaps and inconsistencies.
• Processes slow down: A disconnected intranet requires employees to jump from one application to the next, decreasing efficiency and adding friction.

Employees become disengaged: An inefficient intranet that doesn’t work when and how employees expect it to can erode trust and lead to disinterest in the intranet and the organization.

Opportunity costs of partnering with innovation laggards

Modern intranets serve as the central nervous system of your organization’s digital workplace, extending beyond operations and into culture. They must continuously evolve to support a changing digital ecosystem that drives engagement, productivity, and collaboration — functions that require adaptive solutions, not static platforms.

If your intranet partner isn’t prioritizing innovation and integrating new technology like generative AI into its platform, you’re not just missing out on cutting-edge features — you’re losing momentum. 

Better tools mean better results

Productivity is one of the biggest opportunity costs of partnering with an enterprise intranet platform provider not equipped to scale. An intranet that isn’t actively evolving is increasingly hindering productivity rather than enhancing it.

Simpplr’s AI-powered employee experience platform suggests relevant content, streamlines workflows across connected business systems, and adapts to each user’s behavior, role, and preferences — delivering a completely personalized experience.

These advanced capabilities enable employees to find information faster, collaborate more effectively, and accomplish tasks with fewer clicks, creating measurable productivity gains across the organization. Looking ahead, investments in emerging technologies like agentic AI promise to further transform how employees interact with information and systems — ensuring your intranet continues to simplify work as technology advances.

Silos and knowledge gaps

Knowledge sharing and collaboration across departments drives innovation and efficiency. However, many legacy intranets fail to support cross-functional communication — instead siloing departments and information. 

The best intranet partners continuously enhance their platforms to improve collaboration. They evolve from document sharing to content recommendations that proactively connect relevant information across departments.

Visibility into how users are engaging with your intranet content is crucial for leadership decision-making. A future-proof intranet partner provides clear analytics that show which content employees use and where information gaps exist. More importantly, they constantly improve these tools to help you better understand your digital workplace as collaboration patterns change over time.

Higher turnover and lower employee engagement

If an intranet is a challenge to use, employees won’t use it. Even worse, they may begin to drift from the organization and its goals. As much as an intranet can be used to engage and motivate employees, the opposite can be said for stagnant intranets that leave employees frustrated, confused, and neglected.

The employee experience post-pandemic is less about watercooler conversations and break rooms and more about the seamlessness of a digital workplace. 

With remote workers and hybrid employees at an all-time high, your intranet is the strongest reflection of your company culture. Partnering with a provider committed to continuous interface improvements helps ensure your digital culture remains vibrant and engaging.

Missing competitive advantage

Every business looks for opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. Choosing an enterprise intranet platform partner that can evolve with your business needs isn’t just a great investment today — it compounds in value over time as the capabilities gap between forward-thinking and static platforms widens.

The right intranet partner invests in innovation and anticipates customer needs before they become critical.  The wrong partner can hinder creativity and stunt progress as the gap between your technology and competitors’ capabilities widens over time. 

While the opportunity costs of partnering with an innovation laggard are significant, there are also direct financial implications to consider when your intranet eventually needs replacement.

Financial impacts of intranet platform migration

Many organizations stay with their outdated intranet for longer than they should — leading to the indirect costs mentioned above and eventually, direct costs when it comes time to make a change. Choosing a vendor that can’t evolve with changing needs forces organizations into costly platform migrations that could have been avoided. The ripple effect of migrating to a new intranet affects your organization’s systems, people, and processes. 

Some of the financial costs that you can expect when you upgrade your intranet include:

• Direct migration expenses: Legacy intranets have years of data. When you migrate that to a new platform, you’ll have costs to audit, clean, and import that information.
• Governance configuration: To prevent the content issues of your old intranet, you’ll need to invest in proper governance and content architecture. 
• IT staff and lost momentum: Migrating to a new platform will require time from your IT department, who may otherwise be working on other strategic initiatives.
• Consultant and partner fees: Many organizations hire third-party agencies and experts to manage and assist with platform migration.
• Retraining and user adoption: Training users on the new intranet platform is another expense that can’t be avoided.
  

5 dimensions of future-ready enterprise intranet platform providers

Choosing an enterprise intranet platform goes beyond the technology — you’re looking for a long-term partner equally invested in your success. While you can evaluate an intranet on the standard features like mobile optimization, search functionality, content governance, and user role management, it’s just as important to evaluate whether the partner can adapt and support your organization as you move forward.

Consider this framework during your intranet platform evaluation process:

1. Reputation and experience

Like any important purchasing decision, you should first look for reviews and references to verify the company’s reputation. When reading reviews, look for key points like their responsiveness to feature requests and customer needs, not just their technical support after the sale. The best partners work closely with customers and understand emerging needs rather than simply reacting to problems.

Focus on evidence of ongoing value delivery:

• Verified user reviews that demonstrate responsiveness and ongoing support
• Examples of long-term relationships where customers have expanded usage over time
• Problem-solving capabilities that address emerging challenges
• Ways the vendor has continued to improve their product based on customer feedback

Consider looking for user reviews from trusted sources like G2, which is currently the largest source of user reviews. For example, Simpplr has been recognized in G2’s Summer 2024 Report. These reviews from actual customers can provide valuable insights into how a vendor performs after the sale.

2. Organizational stability and focus

When you pick an intranet partner, you’re not just investing in their product — you’re betting on that company’s success. Building internal infrastructure on an external platform requires trust. Look for partners with sound financial health and leadership.

Research funding history. Look into the churn rate of customers. Ask specifically about how much resource is being allocated to R&D and product development. If a vendor doesn’t have answers to these questions or is unwilling to offer you that added assurance, it may be a sign of instability and caution.

3. Strategic vision and product roadmap

Any good business relationship requires synergy and alignment — an intranet partner is no different. Understanding the vendor’s future plans as it relates to product releases and targeted goals can help you identify your own internal processes and systems that may be shaped by those advancements.

Product roadmaps reveal priorities and innovation capacity:

• Do they base their development on clear themes or an accumulation of tacked-on features?
• Do they balance their investment across user experience, technical foundation, and security?
• Do they have transparent timelines with accountability for delivery?

Another consideration is whether a vendor demonstrates understanding of workplace experience trends:

• Can they articulate a clear vision for addressing future workplace needs?
• Are they focused on simplifying work and reducing friction for remote teams?
• Are they prioritizing AI workflows to cut down on redundant tasks?

Gaining perspective on the vendor’s vision and roadmap can also reveal potential red flags. The prospective partner may be focused on features without addressing specific problems. Maybe they don’t have a roadmap at all. Ultimately, you’ll need to evaluate whether their vision aligns with your organization’s goals and trajectory.

4. Domain expertise and industry recognition

The best partners are often the ones driving the entire industry forward. Rather than following the pack, they are leading it. Top vendors are domain experts speaking at events, leading discussion, and publishing research on a variety of important and timely topics. If you’re looking for a future-ready partner, the trailblazers are the ones to follow. 

Explore your potential vendor’s website for substantive content such as original research, ebooks, and webinars that demonstrate expertise and thought leadership. Read through a few of their latest blogs to see what ideas they are sharing. Are they exploring emerging trends with nuanced understanding?Evaluate whether a potential vendor has been recognized by respected industry analysts. For example, The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms report evaluates intranet platform providers across multiple dimensions, and the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions presents an in-depth assessment and identifies market leaders. Recognition from these reputable sources can reflect the consistency, innovation, and maturity of a technology partner.

5. Innovation rhythm and support infrastructure

You can help avoid intranet stagnation by researching an enterprise intranet platform provider’s historical patterns of updates and feature releases. A consistent track record of improvements in regular cadences signals innovation and adaptability.

These enhancements may be large or minor updates between releases — and may come from the product roadmap or through customer feedback and suggestions. In any case, choosing a partner that has shown a pattern of innovation is a strong indicator of its future actions.

A strong partner will also have a dedicated process for managing support and customer service requests. This infrastructure is important because it adds assurance and sets expectations for managing critical issues before implementation. If you hit roadblocks, are there dedicated specialists available 24/7 or will you need to submit a ticket and wait hours for a response? Knowing this ahead of time will make the implementation process easier and mitigate any unnecessary frustrations within the platform.

Implementing a strategic intranet platform evaluation process

Deciding on an enterprise intranet platform requires thinking beyond immediate technical requirements to consider long-term partnership potential. Internal communications and IT teams understand how quickly organizational priorities shift, making it critical to find a vendor whose solution can address existing challenges while demonstrating the ability to evolve. 

Start your intranet platform evaluation process by developing a vendor scorecard. While many organizations focus solely on features or price, a future-focused approach requires evaluating multiple dimensions that impact long-term success. 

A weighted framework for your intranet platform evaluation could resemble the following:

• Current features (40%): How much of your existing needs does it satisfy?
• Future capabilities (30%): How does their product roadmap align with your organizational goals?
• Partnership quality (30%): How much do you trust this vendor’s stability, and can they support your growth?

For a more thorough evaluation, expand your assessment to include these critical dimensions:

• Vendor experience and stability: Financial health, leadership continuity, and track record with similar organizations
• Product and market strategy: Vision alignment, innovation approach, and competitive positioning
• Platform and use case capabilities: Core functionality, flexibility, and suitability for your specific scenarios
• Services and support quality: Implementation assistance, training resources, and ongoing technical support
• Security and compliance frameworks: Data protection measures, regulatory adherence, and risk management
• Technical infrastructure flexibility: Scalability, integration capabilities, and architectural soundness
• Total cost structure: Initial investment, ongoing fees, and hidden operational expenses

When demoing the software, bring different internal team members in to gain their unique perspective. Ask for a “day in the life” walkthrough where the vendor shows how the intranet would support and work for each specific user in your organization. This offers a first-hand account of the platform using real-world scenarios.

Following a standardized intranet platform evaluation process will help you break through the traditional feature-by-feature or price-based comparison charts. This process is important, because it’s tailored to your organization and its short- and long-term goals.

Simpplr is the future-ready enterprise intranet provider

Selecting an enterprise intranet platform based solely on current capabilities virtually guarantees eventual obsolescence — especially at the rate technology evolves. By evaluating potential technology partners across the five dimensions of future readiness — reputation, stability, vision, expertise, and innovation — organizations can identify partners positioned to deliver sustained value.

Simpplr’s AI-powered employee experience platform was built with adaptability at its core. The platform offers extensive customization options and connectors that unify your business systems into a cohesive digital workplace. Simpplr makes substantial investments in research and development to continuously enhance the platform while solving today’s workplace needs.

What truly sets Simpplr apart is a dedicated approach to customer service. By pairing strategic implementation with ongoing success partnerships, we deliver long-term value as workplace needs change.

Ready to find out how Simpplr can support your business as you scale? Request a demo today!