26 November 2025
At a time when organizations are profoundly rethinking their ways of working and collaborating, the intranet holds a strategic position. Long seen as a simple internal communication tool, it has become a true operational lever, capable of streamlining communication, improving daily efficiency, strengthening knowledge capitalization, and contributing to the company's attractiveness.
When well designed, an intranet offers intuitive navigation, clear and personalized information, relies on solid governance, and benefits from a strong adoption support framework. To implement an effective intranet, choosing a high-performing technology is not enough: it requires a structured methodology, a clear vision, and the involvement of teams.
An intranet reaches 100% of connected employees. Its redesign is therefore a critical project that demands coordination, listening, and rigor… along with a multi-step approach. So, how do you create an intranet that truly works?
The answer lies in a logical sequence: strategic framing, in-depth listening, precise definition of needs, followed by a structured and well-supported implementation.
Let’s explore the 4 key steps that guarantee a successful intranet project.
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Every intranet project begins with a simple question: what role should the future intranet play within the company’s digital ecosystem?
The intranet can first be embedded within a broader Digital Workplace, made up of collaborative tools, business portals, document repositories, or HR solutions. Understanding these interactions helps identify complementary strengths, potential overlaps, and the use cases the intranet will need to support or simplify.
It is equally essential to assess the technical constraints in which the intranet will operate: architecture, security, identity and access management, multilingual requirements, multi-country infrastructure…
Taking both dimensions into account, the functional ecosystem and the technical framework, provides a clear vision of the environment on which the future intranet must be built.
This analysis of the technical context is complemented by the organisation’s strategic listening process: discussions with executives are essential to understand the business priorities, the internal transformation challenges, the corporate culture, and the expectations in terms of communication and operational efficiency. A successful intranet is built on the strategic plan and plays a key role in supporting its implementation.
This framing phase also makes it possible to define several possible scenarios, more or less ambitious, more or less personalized, and, when relevant, to sketch out an initial budget estimate, including both investments (CAPEX) and recurring costs (OPEX). From there, the company can make an informed Go/No Go decision, with a clear vision of the objectives and resources to be mobilized.
Once the initial directions are set, the project enters a phase of in-depth listening. This is arguably the most structuring step, as it allows for a true understanding of employees’ actual needs, beyond intuition or preconceived ideas.
The process starts with an analysis of the existing system through its key dimensions:
This detailed mapping provides a precise understanding ofthe strengths and weaknesses of the existing intranet :
After this analysis, employee involvement becomes essential. Individual interviews, group workshops, and online surveys each provide complementary insights. Individual interviews, often conducted with managers, help better understand the expected role of the intranet and the specific needs of their teams. Workshops reveal operational expectations and concrete use cases, while online surveys provide a broad and quantified view of needs across the organization.
To complete the process, a benchmark of market solutions and feedback from other organizations helps draw on best practices, avoid previously encountered mistakes, and better anticipate the limitations or strengths of the technologies being considered. The project then begins to take clearer shape: expectations, needs, constraints, and areas of attention are now well defined.
At this stage, it becomes possible to clearly formalize what the future intranet should be. This marks the start of a more technical and structured phase: that of functional and technical specifications.
These elements then make it possible to build a clear roadmap: project stages, milestones, required resources, support methods, deployment schedule.
CAPEX and OPEX projections are also refined, which allows management to validate the investments.
Finally, a comprehensive specification document (RFP: Request For Proposal) is drafted and sent to a short list of intranet solution providers. In most cases, three partners are enough to enable a meaningful comparison. Demonstrations, technical discussions, and comparative analyses help choose the most suitable technology, not only for the short term, but also to support the company’s future development.
The implementation is the most visible phase. It is generally carried out in agile mode, through successive prototypes. This approach, more flexible than traditional methods, allows for rapid testing of new ideas, progressive feature adjustments, and shorter development timelines.
Once the initial modules are ready, the company moves on to data loading. Administrators and contributors are trained to publish and structure content in the new environment. In the case of a redesign, a partial or complete migration of content may be carried out.
The next step is testing, a critical stage of the project. This involves testing the intranet across all dimensions: functional, technical, ergonomic, mobile, as well as security, performance, and scalability. Access rights, workflows, and integrations with business applications are closely reviewed. Several test cycles are generally required before validating a stable version.
The success of an intranet also relies on strong change management support. Clear governance (roles, responsibilities, committees, editorial rules, KPIs), contributor training, establishment of dedicated support, and engaging communication around the launch: adoption cannot be mandated; it must be cultivated.
Finally comes the Go Live, often supported by visible actions: email campaigns, webinars, teasers, videos, user guides, or even contests to encourage discovery.
Every project is unique, but some constants apply across all contexts. An intranet should never be seen solely as a technical tool: it is above all a company-wide project, cross-functional, involving Communication, IT, HR, business units, and local teams in international groups.
Another key takeaway: never start from the technology to then imagine the use cases. The approach must be reversed: understand the usage, needs, and pain points, then choose the technology that best meets them.
Finally, timelines vary depending on ambition, scope, technical complexity, or the presence of local platforms. Most full redesigns take place over 6 to 18 months — a realistic timeframe to build a sustainable and robust platform.
Redesigning an intranet is much more than a digital project: it is a transformation that directly impacts the employee experience, operational efficiency, and the quality of internal communication.
At Arctus, we have been supporting organizations for nearly 20 years in building intranets that are high-performing, useful, and widely adopted. Our methodologies are based on both the best practices on the market, client feedback, and a deep understanding of internal usage.
If you would like to discuss your challenges, learn how other companies have structured their projects, or explore possibilities for your organization, we would be happy to talk with you.
Senior consultant
Alexander has over 20 years of experience leading digital projects on an international scale. Passionate about digital, Alexander coordinates complex projects involving multiple departments in the creation, adoption and operation of internal collaboration devices.
