The current economic situation is volatile and companies need to be agile and strategically flexible in order to remain competitive in the long term. The key here is to win over your own employees as allies through effective internal communication.

A study by McKinsey shows that companies with effective internal communication have 25% higher productivity. But the reality is often different: A lack of information, misunderstandings and inefficient communication channels are detrimental to collaboration and motivation. Relevant process information and messages often do not arrive where they are needed and employees have to actively search for them in various systems.

Due to the general information overload that is common in most companies today, it happens time and again that important information does not reach employees, e.g. important work instructions or changes to processes. This leads to errors in the implementation of company processes, which can be very expensive.

Another problem is the often heterogeneous and historically evolved system landscapes in companies. When working with these different systems on a daily basis, problems arise for employees, particularly when it comes to obtaining and providing information. A frequent difficulty is the complexity that arises from the fragmentation of the systems. Instead of obtaining relevant information automatically and centrally (push method), users have to visit the various systems, find their way around and obtain the information they need from them (pull method). This requires what is known as orientation or access knowledge, which often takes several years to acquire. In principle, enterprise search tools address this problem - but it has not been solved in many companies in terms of a smoothly functioning and accepted approach.

The personal relevance of the information for users is also a major challenge. The traditional supply of news typically takes place via editorially recorded messages from corporate communications. This is top-down information that summarizes important company issues from a management perspective for a broad audience.

However, these company news items are often not relevant to employees' daily work; on the contrary, they may distract them from their actual work. Relevant news is rather information from the various business areas or processes of a company. Ideally, this information is generated automatically in the systems and does not require a lot of manual editing. For example, if the company acquires a new customer, this is certainly interesting for the staff to know and is classified as important. This information is also recorded in the CRM system using a specific status field or attribute. However, often no one except the CRM users is aware of this status change. And there is often simply not enough time for additional, editorial communication, i.e. manual entry.

In addition to this example from the sales sector, many other areas of application can be identified in which information is generally available but does not reach the users. This part of the information that plays a role in the productivity of employees in a company is referred to as the necessary relevance area in the following diagram. However, most companies do not yet have a supply of such information.

A central information system would probably be desirable, which on the one hand retains the unstructured and flexible character of the previous information supply, but is also connected to the application systems in the company via interfaces and provides real data and facts from the business processes. The flow of information should be precise and target group-specific and not, as is often the case with e-mail systems, overwhelm a large group of recipients with irrelevant information (irrelevant area, shown in the diagram on the left).

The aim is therefore to increase the proportion of relevant information in the company and at the same time reduce distraction and information stress caused by too many irrelevant messages. This is precisely where the iNFOHUB communication software from VANTAiO comes in. It makes the transition from a pull paradigm to a push culture. The aim is to deliver all relevant messages to users “ready to go” - at a central location and across all connected sources. The notification centers on smartphones follow a similar principle. The difference, however, lies in the relevance of the information. This is not about repeated notifications from Groupon, eBay classifieds or other apps, for example, but about news and facts with business relevance. Of course, the law of dosage also applies here: employees should neither drown in information nor be underserved. The golden mean is required - and this is automatically controlled by intelligent filters and personalization in the system.

The VANTAiO iNFOHUB initially includes its own editorial entry component. The solution makes it easy for editors to create a wide variety of news items. Operation is intuitive and the smartphone is also explicitly supported for news capture. Connectors can also be used to connect any application systems, such as SAP, Service Now, Microsoft Teams or other systems. The main objective here is automation, i.e. information is no longer entered into the system “by hand”, but is fed in automatically from the respective source. Before publication, the messages can be further processed, translated into the desired languages and released via the integrated workflow.

A relevant supply of information is the basis of every digital workplace. However, the implementation of a modern information system is not only determined by content-related factors, but also by the respective technological requirements. So that you can act flexibly here too, the VANTAiO iNFOHUB can be used in all common SAP interface technologies and can also be integrated into non-SAP systems, such as Microsoft Teams. The range of functions and options naturally depends on the technology selected - we will be happy to advise you on the integration options of the various SAP solutions and the interaction with the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).