An intranet is an expensive endeavour and therefore your intranet budget must be a primary consideration. The timescale and budget for your intranet determine the scope of your project. You may have been allocated a budget and have been asked to submit your proposal for delivering a new intranet, or, you may have no set budget and be responsible for securing the required funding for your intranet plans. Whether you have a set budget or not, this blog discusses important budgeting considerations for your to think about.
Already know your budget?
If you already know your budget, your proposal should include answers to the following, keeping in mind SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based) intranet goals.
Budget
- Specific – What is your budget?
- Measurable – How much is your budget?
- Achievable – Is it realistic? Do you have a contingency plan?
Timescale
- Relevant / realistic – Is this the right time for a new intranet? Why?
- Time-based – Do you have any specific deadlines? How will overruns affect your overall intranet project?
Don't know your budget?
If you don’t have a set budget, there are a few steps that need to be taken - you need to do your homework before you pitch for the budget.
Assuming you have an existing intranet, the first place to start is to review your current intranet. How many users do you have? Where is it hosted? What functionality is core to your business? The fact that you have been asked to undertake this piece of work might indicate that there is recognition that your current intranet is not fit for purpose.
To enhance this, it’s good practice to gain feedback from a selection of end users to gain insight into how the organisation views and uses the current intranet.
Once you have a solid understanding of how your current intranet is being used (and any future requirements) you can start to build your initial business requirements. This will be refined when you undertake comprehensive stakeholder interviews and surveys when the budget is approved and your project goes live.
Once you have your initial business requirements and initial launch date of when you would like to be live, you can start window shopping and seeking initial quotes based upon your initial findings.
To ensure you get meaningful quotes, you should identify:
- How this project would link in with the overall corporate strategy
- The number of users
- Hosting requirements
- Core intranet requirements & business processes
- Functionality must haves
- Functionality nice to haves
- Resources
- Timescales
- Ongoing development and updates
- Ongoing technical support
- Design requirements
- Contingency
When you start to engage with potential suppliers you will start to refine your initial specification and will end up with a range of initial quotes for you to then either shortlist or include within your pitch document to provide an overview of the types of cost the project might incur.
After compiling your initial business specification and having sourced a number of quotes you should now be in a position to start writing your intranet budget proposal.
I hope you have found this useful in helping you start to think about your intranet budget proposal. If you would like to find out more why not download our free Business Case Guide for more in-depth information.
