10 Reasons Building Your Own Intranet Is a TERRIBLE Idea

Currently considering building your own intranet? We have one word: ABORT! Here are 10 reasons why you need to ditch the homegrown intranet for good.

The appetite for custom-built, homegrown intranets is dead

– Cheryl McKinnon, Principal Analyst with Forrester

Would you build your own version of videoconferencing tool? What about your own CRM? I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the answer is a hard ‘no’.

So I have another question: why would you consider building your own intranet?

For us, the answer is already crystal clear: unless you want to put yourself through unnecessary misery, and unless you care more about your RFI compliance than actual adoption, DON’T DO IT.

And yet, companies still give their time to the age-old dilemma: whether they build a customizable but outdated intranet, or buy a contemporary SaaS solution that prioritizes the user experience and cutting-edge technology.

Those that go with the former are making a grave mistake. Customers come to us to transform their digital experience. When we ask about their legacy intranet, their eyes glaze over with terror. Here’s what we’ve heard: there are always major regrets, there’s always far more cost and effort involved than originally anticipated, and there are always disappointments with how few employees engage with the tool.

Every. Single. Time.

While it may be tempting for IT teams to build a solution for the RFP they’ve created, focusing on compliance and ticking feature/function boxes over what people really want is a surefire way to get left behind.

That’s where the SaaS employee experience platform comes in. It merges intranet functionalities with other tools in one central hub for everything from engagement and communication to recognition and insights.

It takes a consumer-inspired approach to EX, delivering a service employees are already familiar with and actually want to use.

But to avoid confirmation bias (and feeding too much into our own ego), I asked some experts – inside and outside of Workvivo – to tell us what they think. Here are 10 reasons it’s time to say goodbye to the homegrown intranet for good.

1. Your adoption levels will be low

90% of intranets fail within their first three years because they’re not designed with purpose, they’re lacking when it comes to UX, and they haven’t evolved to meet modern business needs.

SaaS intranet platforms tick all three of these boxes (and more), and that’s why they achieve far higher adoption levels.  

Paul Condon, our Global Services Sales Manager, says, “It requires significant time, effort, and expertise to achieve a minimal viable product, and then you need to convince your employees of its usability and, critically, its everyday benefits and utility.”

For your people to actually engage with it, he explains, your intranet “must be easy to use”. “It must have relevant content. The data needs to be safe and secure.”

Homegrown intranets don’t deliver in these key areas, which is part of the reason that only 13% of employees use them daily.

And if you want to capture the interest of millennial and Gen Z employees in particular, a seamless user experience becomes crucial. These generations value instant gratification and tend to seek out self-service solutions – the kind that technology with excellent UX provides.

The bottom line? Poor UX = poor adoption.

2. They’re resource-intensive

If there’s one thing everyone in this piece agrees on, it’s that homegrown intranets take a lot of work. Like, seriously – a lot.

Shona O’Toole, Internal Comms and Engagement Consultant here at Workvivo, says, “Developing and maintaining an intranet requires significant time, effort, and resources for very little engagement or return on investment, and usually falls on a very small internal comms team.”

But the work doesn’t simply stop after setup. She adds, “Ongoing maintenance, updates, and bug fixes are essential for the smooth operation of an intranet. Without dedicated resources, the homegrown intranet will become outdated and unreliable over time.”

Nature Energy’s Sofie Storm Hansen views building an intranet as building your own ‘universe’, something she knows requires “a lot of time, skills, reflections, and know-how”, while Zyte’s Elspeth Cameron believes nothing can truly match the knowledge and expertise of the people already specialized in building employee platforms.

She shares, “It could take many months for an in-house person to gain such knowledge. Plus, employees are moving to new jobs more frequently. If the person who built the in-house intranet goes, then your company could run into problems.”

As a Product Manager at AIB Life, Viviane Steil understands what she calls the “meticulous planning” involved in determining the features that a system needs. “Just envision the workload associated with creating and maintaining your company's organizational chart. Well, Workvivo has this functionality readily embedded in its features.”

Finally, Domestic & General Communications Specialist Dana-Alexandra Chis sums it up nicely: “It would be super important for your team to have the necessary resources and expertise to build and sustain an independent intranet, as well as adapt it to current trends and unique needs of the business.”

3. They’re not scalable or inclusive

Homegrown intranets are much less likely to be scalable, which means two things: they can’t keep up with your growing organization, and they’re probably not very inclusive.

Shona explains that as a company gets bigger, homegrown intranets can “struggle to scale effectively to accommodate increased users, content, and functionality”.

Workvivo Employee Comms and Engagement Consultant, Eva Barker, highlights the wider impacts of a homegrown intranet’s ability to scale: “A lot of these intranets are limited in reach, particularly if you have a frontline workforce. It ends up being a tool for part of the desk-based business, but misses the crucial teams outside of that bracket, and, ultimately, causes inconsistency in comms across the company.

“They also tend to have serious limitations in growing and evolving with your business and may not integrate with additional tools and applications you use, ultimately becoming an additional standalone tool that doesn’t effectively bring all of these solutions together.”

In short: the homegrown intranet gets old quickly, meaning it can’t keep up with either the market or your employees’ expectations. 

4. They’re more expensive than you think

Our homegrown intranet didn’t go way over budget or take ages to deliver

– No CIO – literally none of them – ever

While homegrown intranets may initially appear like the more cost-effective option, the opposite is typically true.

Legacy technology can lead to as much as a 20% increase in operational costs and a 22% increase in downtime, risking loss of revenue and stakeholder trust. And according to one survey, almost half (48%) of IT leaders say their legacy systems are causing high operational costs.

With a homegrown intranet, you need to pay competitive salaries for in-house tech support who might be spending most of their time just maintaining the tool’s functionality, let alone updating it. With a SaaS alternative, the technology is top-class (meaning it doesn’t break over and over again) and user-friendly for every member of an organization (not just the IT team). 

Elspeth says, “The two mostly costly areas in a company are people and technology. If you decide to build an intranet in-house, you'll need people from your IT department and perhaps extra developers, as well as time keeping it up to date, which means extra cost.”

It’s also important to remember that on average, major software projects (like building an intranet) overspend by 45% and that unengaged employees are more costly than engaged ones – they can cost their employers as much as $3,400 for every $10,000 salary!

5. Features and integrations aren’t good enough

Without developers and product teams that live and breathe modern SaaS functionality, your features simply won’t be up to scratch (or used by your employees).

Shona warns that opting for a homegrown intranet is likely to result in a “basic system with limited features and functionality”.

“Integrating the intranet with existing systems, such as HR software, project management tools, and document repositories, can be complex,” she adds.

In fact, integrations are something 63% of organizations are struggling with because of outdated legacy intranet systems.

Security and compliance should also be top concerns when it comes to your EX platform – something that Elspeth says Workvivo provides “without the need for extensive in-house development”.

And if personalization and customization are a worry, fear not – with a solution like Workvivo, Viviane says that the “high level of customization allows you to seamlessly integrate it with your company’s unique identity”.

6. Your RFI might not be so great

You can’t know what you don’t know, right? When you aren’t a specialist in employee experience technology, you’re probably not best-placed to decide what your employee experience technology needs.

EX platform providers like Workvivo, on the other hand, gather knowledge from hundreds of customers and millions of users, all of which informs product updates, best practice, and functionality.

7. They’ll let you communicate, but not converse

One of the most critical things about a modern EX platform is that it’s social. Your intranet solution is a key part of your internal comms strategy and delivery, and should promote open communication over top-down messaging.

In fact, the more social your intranet, the more productive your people are likely to be, according to McKinsey.

Eva explains, “Communicating with your business, particularly for leadership, isn’t just about broadcast, but about dialogue and how we interact with our employees. This is the space where you develop collaboration and innovation, gather feedback, understand sentiment across the business, and drive real employee engagement.

“It’s a digital space for everyone to come together, across your operations but also your company culture.

“Homegrown intranets simply aren’t going to give you the ability to share updates in engaging and exciting formats that employees have a real emotional connection to, such as videos, livestreams, and podcasts.”

8. They’re unpredictable

One of the scariest things about homegrown intranets? You can’t be sure they’ll adequately address your pain points.

Nicolette Roses-Agoro, our Community, Internal Comms & Engagement Strategist, says one thing the homegrown intranet simply can’t give you is “validation”.

“A platform like Workvivo specifically offers years of proof that software like this works. Through expansive customer bases spanning across multiple industries and sizes, SaaS intranet solutions are able to provide benchmarks and clear steps that lead to success. At the end of the day, it’s a tried-and-tested method that only requires you to lean into the process.”

9. They’re probably not people-first

An intranet isn’t just a noticeboard for housing announcements, documents, and company-wide updates. At least, not anymore.

Your EX platform is the central hub where everyone feels welcome and able to contribute. But to achieve that, it needs to nail the basics while seamlessly building and maintaining a culture of empowerment and recognition.

As Eva says, “We know the power of recognition when it comes to an engaged workforce. Being able to shoutout a colleague or team, celebrate the wins, the success stories – it’s hugely powerful and it’s always at the core for our customers that are leading the way in company culture.”

10. Support and customer success are crucial

Something you simply can’t get with a homegrown intranet solution is exceptional expert support from day one.

Eva says, “Opting for a homegrown intranet means you won’t have a dedicated team of specialists sitting behind it to support you in your goals and objectives, from tech support and to customer experience to long-term customer success.

“Often the maintenance and management of an intranet falls on a team with limited capacity to effectively support the wider business. So really think about what you want to achieve, if you want to connect with your entire business, anywhere anytime, with consistent communications, connect with employees in a meaningful way, through a tool that’s going to continuously evolve aligned to your needs, and will amplify your company culture, then a homegrown intranet will not be the long-term solution or success story you’re looking for.”  

But SaaS intranet support comes in other forms, too. Rachael Quinlan, Head of Employee Experience at CluneTech, shares, “We have constant access to expert advice, best practice examples, and a collaborative team that work with us to get our platform to where we want it to be.

“While many organizations will focus solely on the launch date, Workvivo provides a best-in-class customer experience on an ongoing basis.”

Sofie adds that an intranet support and success team can even help uncover “opportunities you haven’t considered”.

“Let’s face it; you can’t think of it all on your own,” she says. “You need inspiration and inputs.”

Case Study: CluneTech’s ‘Community Space’

Wondering how a company goes from homegrown intranet hell to a sleek SaaS solution? Rachael shares her team’s experience with Workvivo.

“Prior to implementing Workvivo in December 2019, we had our own homegrown intranet called ‘Community Space’.

“Community Space didn’t facilitate any interaction between employees and instead, was essentially a virtual noticeboard. We relied heavily on our developers to make any site changes, or even something as simple as adding content, which was a problem in itself as we were pulling them from key projects to work on the site. 

“While a homegrown intranet might sound like an obvious solution for some companies, particularly those in the technology space, nine times out of 10, it will not be nearly as effective as a solution like Workvivo.

“Similarly, I can guarantee that while a homegrown intranet may appear more budget-friendly, that is very rarely the case.

“For us, giving our people the ability to interact with each other and business leaders was a key requirement. Ideally, we also wanted a solution that would serve as a one-stop shop, fully replacing our former intranet but providing a much better UX for our teams globally.

“Lastly, as a suite of global companies with over 1,200 employees, we were eager to find a way in which our companies and teams could communicate and share content privately too.”

Read more about CluneTech’s Workvivo experience here.

Your next steps are obvious

What now?

I think Nicolette sums it up perfectly – “If you love wasting company funds, being unable to prove your success, and constantly trying to catch up with the latest software, then by all means, go for it!

“Considering building a homegrown intranet will send you into the deep trenches of exhaustion. You’ll continually be trying to replicate what heavily funded, established platforms already have and this can lead you further away from your goals by putting important metrics, like employee engagement, on the backburner.

“If you’re toying with the idea of developing something internal, then you’re likely already aware that you’re lacking in areas such as strong communication, a great employee experience, ways to recognize individuals, and more. Why wait by investing resources into software development when you can harness a SaaS platform, be up and running within 12 weeks (or less), and already start seeing engagement statistics?

“The answer seems fairly obvious at this point, don’t you think?”

Yep, pretty obvious!

It’s critical that leaders and employees alike love your EX platform if you want them to use it. The chances of achieving that by something you develop in-house are slim, making the homegrown intranet a high-risk, low-reward endeavor.

With that in mind, resist the allure of the homegrown intranet in favor of a proven platform. Go forth and find the best SaaS intranet provider for you, keeping priorities like user satisfaction, integration capabilities, and futureproofing your digital workplace top of mind.