Report:
The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2024
How does Forrester define the Intranet Platforms market in 2024?
Modernization of corporate intranets continues at a steady pace with organizations moving from customized, homegrown, or on-premises systems to purpose-built cloud-first platforms. Employee communications, personalization, and application integration across the digital workplace are top requirements. Generative AI, automation, and analytics dominate vendor investments, introducing workflow-based processes for employee journeys, multistep communication campaigns, and enhanced dashboards to measure communication success and employee engagement. As cloud platforms supersede aging bespoke systems, customer satisfaction levels are rising.
Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2024 in 2024
- Publication Date: June 5, 2024
- Document ID:
- Summary: In our 28-criterion evaluation of intranet platform providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps technology leaders and professionals select the right one for their needs.
- Authors: Cheryl McKinnon, Glenn O'Donnell, Sara Sjoblom, Kara Hartig
How did the Intranet Platforms market evolve in 2024?
- Modernization of corporate intranets continues at a steady pace
- Technology, internal communication, and business leaders are placing bets on purpose-built cloud-first platforms
- Moving away from customized, homegrown, or on-premises systems
- Top requirements include employee communications, personalization, and application integration across the digital workplace
- Customer satisfaction levels with intranet platforms are rising as cloud platforms supersede aging bespoke systems
- Generative AI (genAI), barely on the radar in late 2022, now dominates new capabilities
- Automation and analytics are top areas of vendor investment
- Workflow-based processes for common employee journeys and multistep communication campaigns are being introduced
- Dashboards and data analytics to measure communication success and employee engagement have improved across the board
- 13 providers evaluated in this assessment
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Product revenue of at least $10 million. Each vendor has a minimum of $10 million in annual revenue related to its intranet platform offering. This includes licensing, subscription, and annual maintenance revenue, not consulting services.
- A platform that is marketed as a solution for intranet and employee communications. Vendors offer a cloud-first intranet platform with native repository capabilities. Each vendor actively invests in its product roadmap and has ongoing go-to-market activities to attract, serve, and retain customers with this need.
- A focus on enterprise clients. Each vendor targets large global organizations and scales to deployments serving 5,000 or more employees.
- An active interest among Forrester clients. Forrester customers demonstrate active interest in these vendor offerings, including inquiry and guidance session mentions and inclusion on shortlists.
What are the common features of top products in the Intranet Platforms space?
No common features specified.
Scope Exclusions
- Vendors with less than $10 million in annual product revenue related to intranet platform offerings
- Platforms not marketed specifically for intranet and employee communications use cases
- Vendors without cloud-first architecture or native repository capabilities
- Solutions not targeting enterprise clients or unable to scale to 5,000+ employees
- Vendors without active interest from Forrester clients
- Consulting services revenue (only licensing, subscription, and annual maintenance revenue counted)
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Product revenue of at least $10 million in annual revenue related to intranet platform offering
- Platform marketed as a solution for intranet and employee communications with cloud-first architecture and native repository capabilities
- Focus on enterprise clients targeting large global organizations scaling to 5,000+ employees
- Active interest among Forrester clients demonstrated through inquiries, guidance sessions, and shortlist inclusion
Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting
- Content and repository services — 5%
- Metadata support — 5%
- Search — 7%
- Governance — 6%
- Application integration: enterprise apps — 5%
- Application integration: productivity apps — 5%
- Dashboards and reporting — 8%
- Generative AI — 3%
- AI and ML — 5%
- Collaboration — 3%
- Personalization — 6%
- Internal communications — 8%
- Employee advocacy — 2%
- Delegated administration — 5%
- Design tools — 6%
- User interfaces — 3%
- Journeys and campaigns — 7%
- Templating — 3%
- Developer resources — 5%
- Surveys — 3%
Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting
- Vision — 25%
- Innovation — 20%
- Roadmap — 20%
- Partner ecosystem — 10%
- Adoption — 20%
- Pricing flexibility and transparency — 5%
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research covers a 28-criterion evaluation of intranet platform providers, focusing on vendors that offer cloud-first platforms with native repository capabilities, target enterprise clients with 5,000+ employees, and have minimum annual revenue of $10 million. The evaluation examines current offerings, strategy (including vision and innovation), and market presence across areas including content management, collaboration, AI/ML capabilities, internal communications, dashboards and reporting, search, governance, personalization, and employee experience.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Technology leaders and professionals selecting an intranet platform should use this research. This includes internal communication leaders, HR leaders, business leaders, and technology professionals who own or influence corporate intranet initiatives. The research is particularly valuable for large and midsize enterprises looking to modernize their intranets by moving to purpose-built cloud-first platforms with strong employee communications, personalization, and application integration capabilities.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: To be included in this evaluation, vendors must have: (1) at least $10 million in annual revenue from intranet platform licensing, subscriptions, and maintenance; (2) a cloud-first intranet platform with native repository capabilities that is actively marketed for intranet and employee communications; (3) capability to serve large global organizations with 5,000+ employees; and (4) demonstrated active interest from Forrester clients through inquiries, guidance sessions, and shortlist mentions.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Annual product revenue below $10 million threshold for intranet platform offerings
- Platform not specifically positioned or marketed for intranet and employee communications use cases
- Lack of cloud-first architecture or native repository capabilities
- Inability to scale to enterprise deployments of 5,000+ employees
- Insufficient active interest or demand from Forrester's client base
- Vendor declined to participate or only partially participated in the evaluation process
- Primary revenue from consulting services rather than platform licensing/subscriptions
Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?
A:
- Support AI — including genAI — at a pace that works for their organization, determining where intelligent services can benefit both leaders and employees while ignoring hype
- Provide user experiences to meet employees where they are with UIs that are easy to use, support accessibility standards, serve desked/frontline/mobile employees, and integrate across productivity tools and enterprise applications
- Invest in data and insights with robust reporting, analytics, and benchmarking to help intranet leaders demonstrate impact and continually improve their programs
- Consider AI readiness levels across the enterprise and employee comfort with different AI capabilities from writing assistants to predictive analytics
- Evaluate vendor's ability to support intelligent agent/bot interfaces and natural language search alternatives
- Assess customer adoption programs, onboarding strategies, and business review processes
- Understand pricing transparency and potential add-on costs for new features or premium services
Q: How has the Intranet Platforms market evolved in 2024?
A:
- Shift from customized, homegrown, or on-premises systems to purpose-built cloud-first platforms
- Generative AI dominates new capabilities after barely being on the radar in late 2022
- Automation of workflow-based processes for common employee journeys and multistep communication campaigns
- Enhanced dashboards and data analytics to measure communication success and gain insights into employee engagement
- Rising customer satisfaction levels as cloud platforms supersede aging bespoke systems
- Employee communications, personalization, and application integration as top requirements
- AI-based intelligent agents and natural language question-and-answer interfaces as alternatives to complex search queries
Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?
A: Strength of Current Offering evaluates the vendor's existing product capabilities across 20 functional criteria including content management, search, AI/ML, collaboration, personalization, internal communications, and design tools. It assesses what the platform can do today. Strength of Strategy evaluates forward-looking elements including the vendor's vision for the market, innovation capability, product roadmap execution, partner ecosystem strength, customer adoption programs, and pricing transparency. It assesses where the vendor is heading and how well-positioned they are for future success.
Reference
- Forrester, The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2024, June 5, 2024, ID
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