The FMCG Company – Increasing intranet traffic by 1000%
The Challenge
A multinational FMCG company was taking its European operations through 'turnaround' – a set of projects aimed at increasing efficiency. To ensure employees were kept fully informed of progress, the company published updated project plans on part of their intranet. However, it soon became clear that few people were accessing the information.

In common with many large and complex organisations, the intranet was large and complex – difficult to navigate and next to impossible to find specific information.

The Solution
Employees needed a compelling reason to visit the turnaround section of the site on a regular basis. The architecture of the site was amended to provide a news section as the landing page and a minimum of three new stories a week were posted. At an early stage an agenda for the site was developed that set out what content and style was required and, just as importantly, what would not be used – for instance documents that could be briefed were rejected. The aim was provide background and context for managers when they were talking to their staff, allowing them to 'tell stories' rather than give dry briefings.

Given the 'pull' nature of intranets, we also set up off-line channels to help drive people to the site. These included posters and e-postcards, or teasers, which gave people a flavour of what they could read about on the site.

Very quickly, traffic increased to 600 visits a month, a point where senior managers began to view the site as a serious channel for putting their massage across.

The Outcome
With the support of top management, the site was improved further. It published a new story every day and gave access to other parts of the wider intranet – in effect it became a portal. Careful management of the content meant that all parts of the business were featured on the site; it also started to be used as a method of disseminating information quickly, always with the proviso that stories provided background and gave projects and initiatives a human face.

Feedback was positive to the extent that the site architecture and story generation process was mirrored in the North American market.

Such was the success of the site that the decision was taken to make it mandatory – it is now the landing page for everyone in Europe when they log on to the organisation’s network.

The development of the site has been supported by the production of a monthly noticeboard newsletter that gives a précis of the most important and interesting articles as well as key financial information. This means staff without a computer still have the opportunity to share in the stories and information.

Recent upgrades allow videostreaming and blogging giving the 6000+ visitors access to the views of their colleagues across Europe. The next stage is to take the format world-wide.