Most corporate intranets are a messââ,¬"quagmires of disorganised or inaccurate content that cloud managers' ability to make quick decisions, says Leonard Fuld, president of consulting firm Fuld & Co. "It's like walking into a room with piles and piles of paper," says Fuld. "You know there's paper there, but you don't know what pile has what you need. Search engines might get you to a pile, but not the exact paper."
Since his company's own research has shown that intranets can hinder a company's effectiveness, Fuld recently joined forces with MIT's Sloan School of Management to conduct a study of common intranet pitfalls, how they affect corporate decision making, and ways to overcome them. The results are scheduled for release this spring.
The potential for waste is huge. This year alone, companies will spend nearly US$64 billion on intranets worldwide and are expected to spend $200 billion each year by 2010, according to research from GartnerGroup and Forrester Research.
"These companies need to determine which information is relevant," said John Rockart, director of the Sloan School of Management's Centre for Information Systems Research. The moral of the story: "Managers have not thought through what goes into their intranets, and that's a real problem."
