Calculating Costs

This is a follow-up to my February 19 post, Intranet Costs.

Here are a few considerations you should keep in mind when calculating the cost of implementing an intranet.

1. Be sure to distinguish between upfront costs and recurring expenses. The project-related expenditure required to get the site up and running will likely be wasted if there is no budget to keep the site fresh after launch.
2. Identify capital costs and operating expenses separately.
3. Get numbers such as loaded labour costs from your finance team.

Here’s a list of specific items that often need to be considered:

• Server hardware and other infrastructure.
• Server setup and configuration costs.
• Software license fees.
• Software installation, configuration, customization, integration and testing costs.
• If you have decided to ‘roll your own’ you’ll need to factor in software development.
• Up-front labour costs for graphic design.
• Desktop software for content creators, such as HTML and graphics editors, as well as any hardware upgrades required to run these tools.
• Training for IT/IS staff, intranet team and content authors.
• Recurring labour costs associated with content authoring.
• Costs associated with supporting the intranet once it’s launched, including call centre resources as well as IT/IS and the intranet team.

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