With over 15 years building some of the best intranet systems for significant brands across many sectors we have seen the benefits that they can deliver but also the challenges that they throw up.
In the BC (Before Cloud) era the barriers for widespread adoption of intranets included the uneven nature of the investment with large upfront costs to add hardware infrastructure as well as hiring or contracting technical, design and other specialist skills to build and deploy the system.
The user experience was also heavily influenced by older desktop, not browser experience and with each company evolving their system at different rates, maintenance costs escalated and improvements became lengthy and difficult to achieve.
Now – Everything has changed!
The Cloud, coupled with a mobile workforce, whose expectations of engagement with technologies has changed beyond recognition, means that the old world is simply not viable.
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What is now expected from an intranet is all about a user experience that is modern, engaging and in keeping with users personal and social tech experiences. Organisations are also looking at evolving their intranet into a more complete digital workplace where employee orientated business processes such as holiday and absence planning or any form-based systems can be streamlined
The Cloud is the only answer
Only in the Cloud can innovative and disruptive solutions such as www.oak.com be run 24/7 and be available anywhere on the planet and from any device.
Only the Cloud can deliver intranet software and digital workplaces without huge infrastructure costs, setup fees and enable every size of organisation (not just large enterprises) to benefit from improved communication, employee engagement and sharing of content and knowledge.
Only in the Cloud can these applications change and iterate at a speed that meets the accelerating rate of change across organisations large and small.
And once in the Cloud, many business systems benefit the organisation through easy and effective integration.
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We can see the evidence at Oak.com, in the 15 years prior to Oak we attracted nearly 200 clients, In the 8 months since we started showing Oak to the market, over 40 organisations have joined our community with some going live in a matter of days rather than months.
The move to The Cloud is a one-way ticket to a better place!
David Pinches, Oak
David has been a senior director in the enterprise and business software industry for over 20 years working with major brands such as Sage, IRIS and Lotus/IBM.
He has led product management, marketing & business development functions as the market has evolved from legacy systems to Cloud, Mobile and SaaS environments and lectures on product strategy and product management leadership.
David joined Orchid Software in 2016 to head up their launch of a Cloud based Intranet and Digital Workplace called Oak www.oak.com