What is a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ ?
The Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions is the second Magic Quadrant for the category. Defined by Gartner, an Intranet Packaged Solution (IPS) is “a software product that organizations use to create and deploy a website or network of websites, portals, hubs, mobile apps and other digital experiences supporting business-to-employee needs”. Gartner states that “Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well positioned for tomorrow”, so as a Leader we believe Staffbase’s strategy reflects the market and is implemented well.
“We are proud to again be recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions. I believe this recognition continues to reflect the evolution of this technology category,ˮ says Martin Böhringer, CEO at Staffbase. “Companies today are undertaking more enterprise changes than ever before, yet fewer than half of employees report being willing to participate in change. Our intranet is built to address todayʼs complex leadership challenges by inspiring employees with fantastic communication. Most recently we’ve introduced innovations in outcome measurement that are helping our customers gain valuable insights into workforce sentiment and alignment. We believe Gartner continues to recognize that traditional productivity-focused intranets arenʼt the endgame for this tech category.ˮ
A new type of intranet for a new era
Staffbase launched our employee communications-focused intranet solution in 2018 and have quickly become the fastest growing vendor in the space. With the right focus, we believe intranets can be a powerful tool to inspire employees instead of a cluttered digital dump. By putting communications front and center, Staffbase covers the entire communications workflow with a combination of owned channels and employee touchpoints, that allows organizations to reach all employees no matter where they are.
In recent years, we’ve seen a shift in customer demand that we believe is mirrored by the findings in the latest Gartner report. In a world experiencing major demographic shifts, the demand for transactional employer-employee relationships is on the decline. It’s made clear that communication is critical for companies to succeed and inspire their employees.
So rather than looking at traditional intranet vendors with a heavy focus on employee productivity, organizations are seeking intranets built for the purpose of leading in this new age.
Comprehensive channels that meet employees no matter where they are
Traditional intranets have become cluttered by trying to do all things at once. The result? An intranet that employees avoid and admins struggle to manage. With a clear purpose on comms, Staffbase Intranet meets employees where they are. In addition to an intranet, Staffbase offers an Employee App, Employee Email, SMS, Digital Signage, and M365 integrations that create a multichannel communication approach. An intuitive admin experience allows admins to plan, create, and publish once and measure performance all from one central platform. This means you only have to create content once and can publish it out to multiple channels, saving time and increasing visibility.
A fully-branded mobile app allows organizations to engage with their employees and bridge the gap between office and frontline workers. Employees can access information and resources in a way that best suits them, be it sitting at a desktop or on mobile. This unified experience increases engagement and helps put your company in employees pockets.
Comms and Microsoft: A perfect fit into the digital workplace
With a focus on employee communications, Staffbase prioritizes use cases like engagement and utilizes a deep integration strategy with Microsoft. If your employees are in SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, or on the go, Staffbase can bring them all together with one platform and one publishing process across all channels. Simplify your users’ lives and create meaningful connections with M365 integrations like surfacing M365 content, searching from anywhere, or accessing productivity tools. Staffbase’s Microsoft integrations go both ways – reach employees with company news while they’re in SharePoint, Teams, or Viva, and give them points to jump back into Microsoft 365 from the Staffbase Intranet.
Staffbase’s Microsoft integrations work with:
- SharePoint: Personalized news, notifications, and subscriptions
- Teams: Intranet newsfeed directly in Teams
- Viva: Show Staffbase news directly in Viva Connections
Since over 90% of Staffbase customers use Staffbase with Microsoft 365, we see firsthand how a complementary intranet focused on employee communications that integrates with Microsoft for productivity use cases drives high value in the digital workplace.
A strong product strategy that ties comms to business goals
Oftentimes, there is so much going on that aligning, strategizing, and executing can be tough. Our research shows that communicators today face a tool overload. They use a diverse set of siloed tools to plan, publish, and measure what they are doing. Our newly launched product Mission Control Essentials is an end-to-end workflow for strategic communications management and measurement to help tackle exactly these pains. Mission Control allows communicators to translate business objectives into actionable topics with campaigns. These campaigns are tied to business goals and allow admins to measure beyond platform and content metrics. Using Smart Impact, communicators can view a dashboard that displays stats for each campaign with output-based metrics like visibility and engagement at the topic level, and outcome-based metrics with AI-powered sentiment analysis and employee alignment. These insights allow communicators to better understand the big picture and as a result, make smarter decisions, show value, and drive real business impact.
The intranet market: Trends at a glance
The intranet market is gaining renewed interest as companies need a way to engage their workforce and improve the employee experience. Instead of using intranets solely as a personal productivity tool, they must provide additional value to employees with a way to get the information they need and connect with their organization. Informing, engaging, and supporting employees is now more important than ever. Gartner highlights several trends influencing the intranet market:
Gartner references the increase in consideration of frontline workers in intranet decisions. Gartner states “organizations are realizing that their frontline staff have the same employee experience needs as traditional office workers” and are looking to fill those needs. Staffbase originated from the Employee App space and has a strong mobile offering that ensures all employees, especially those on the frontline, have the information and tools they need. Staffbase understands that deskless employees require more than just a news feed app; they benefit from access to self-services, high personalization, and user-friendly functionality.
GenAI continues to be a trend, with potential to reshape intranet experiences. Gartner mentions “with intranets incorporating such a broad array of capabilities for such diverse use cases, the possibilities are endless” and vendors will continue to innovate to incorporate GenAI. Staffbase has incorporated AI with specific guiding principles to help build augmented experiences that users will actually enjoy. The goal is that both admins and end-users can leverage AI to make their daily work easier in a secure way. With enterprise-ready AI hosted securely on Microsoft Azure, Staffbase Companion builds best practices for communication and engagement into AI. With Companion Editor, editors benefit from gold standard content editing with actions like a quick fix for writer’s blocks or creating jazzier titles and teasers. Companion Search is a conversational chatbot for employees, so they can find exactly what they are looking for by getting specific information and content straight from their intranet. As GenAI continues to influence the market, Staffbase will use its principles to guide further developments.
Overview of Gartner Critical Capabilities
Along with the Magic Quadrant, Gartner creates a report on Critical Capabilities that provide additional insights into how vendors perform on certain use cases based on their product capabilities. By looking at the two reports collectively, we believe you can get a deeper understanding into how a vendor helps satisfy common usage scenarios. Gartner has a requirement that a vendor must be able to satisfy three of the use cases mentioned above. The use cases for intranets include:
- Employee communications and engagement
- Employee services
- Application portals
- Knowledge services
- Work management
- Frontline worker support
Hear firsthand from our customers
Interested in what Staffbase customers have to say about our intranet? Take a look at our profile on Gartner Peer Insights™, where we have reviews from customers across different roles and industries.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions, Mike Gotta, Gavin Tay, Priyanka Singh, Larry Cannell, 16 December 2024.
Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Intranet Packaged Solutions, Mike Gotta, Gavin Tay, Priyanka Singh, 16 December 2024.
https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/magic-quadrants-research
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