Working with intranets can sometimes feel like a lonely place to be. A lot of people don’t know what intranets are (how many times have we ended up describing them as ‘a bit like an internal website’ when people ask what you do at parties?!). Those people that do have an intranet often have nothing to compare it to because they can never see anyone else’s. Intranets can also sometimes be undervalued within the workplace (until 2020 that is, when they became critical for helping businesses through the coronavirus crisis).
Sorce has been operating in this lonely marketplace for 20 years and I have been here for 11 of those years. So imagine how exciting it would be after all that time for your product and industry to suddenly be getting some independent attention and analysis, in a way that makes intranets feel much less lonely!
Well I am really pleased to say that time has come. Clearbox Consulting (a longstanding and well respected independent market analyser) has just written its first report on the ‘non-SharePoint intranet product’ market and our Engage product has been featured in the report. Clearbox has written many such reports on the SharePoint intranet product market, so it is great that they have now turned their attention to our area of focus.
We demonstrated to Clearbox as if they were a potential customer and they then went through the same process with around 20 other providers. They then went away to write an independent comparison of all the strengths and weaknesses they saw from each provider.
We don’t know whether Clearbox will say nice things about us yet (we really hope they will), but we are excited to see the result and how it affects how people look at their intranet options. Whenever people buy a car or TV, they always do their research first to help make the right decision, so it makes perfect sense to do the same when investing in an intranet.
I really look forward to attending my first potential client demonstration (when we are allowed to do that again) and seeing the Clearbox report in front of the decision makers. I think it will help us to know that the people we are selling to will be making informed buying decisions. It will obviously help us improve our products in areas where they may need improvement. I also look forward to the intranet marketplace feeling a little less lonely!
