How to Leverage Knowledge Management on Your Intranet for Competitive Advantage

Your modern intranet can be the foundation for smarter knowledge management—connecting people, leveraging shared expertise, and making official content easy to find and apply.

Today, leading organizations use their intranet to help employees locate internal experts, contribute to communities of practice, and access governed content across departments and locations. The goal is clear: enable better decision-making, faster execution, and a lasting competitive edge.

Whether your organization works in Microsoft 365, SharePoint, or uses a platform like Omnia, the intranet can become a key enabler of smarter work. This article outlines four practical ways to improve knowledge management—so your teams can collaborate more effectively, reduce duplication, and turn insight into action.

To learn more about this topic, welcome to join our popular webinar or download this guide for more hands-on examples.

One of the most valuable functions of a modern intranet is intranet people search. When it’s easy to find the right colleague or expert, collaboration happens faster—and knowledge flows more freely.

Start by clearly defining user types (such as office workers, store employees, or production staff) and the profile properties relevant to each group. Customize user profile cards accordingly—showcasing role, location, expertise, certifications, languages spoken, and more.

Encourage employees to maintain rich, updated profiles by making updates simple, adding gamification, and setting up friendly reminders (like quarterly pop-ups). Managers can even track team-level profile completeness.

Then, create a dedicated Find People search app as part of your intranet—allowing users to filter by role, skills, department, location, and more. Include a smart filter for "subject matter experts" to highlight key contributors across the business.

Example in practice: Many leading organizations using Omnia have defined tailored user profiles based on role—such as office, store, or production workers. With properties like certifications, languages, and learning history, they maintain rich profiles that support meaningful collaboration. A quarterly profile wizard prompts updates, while dedicated people search apps—with filters for skills, location, and SMEs—make it fast and easy to find the right person.

Image 1: Advanced intranet people search with filters for skills, role, location, and subject matter experts.

This approach not only streamlines collaboration—it’s a standout knowledge management example of how intranet platforms support effective knowledge services and boost connection and efficiency. 

Knowledge sharing thrives in spaces designed for interaction. Topic-based communities within the intranet—especially those with moderators—encourage ongoing discussions, user-generated content, and peer support.

Knowledge sharing communities will let employees:

✔ Discussions: Start or join conversations on key topics.

✔ Knowledge Articles: Publish articles and blog posts relevant for members..

✔ Shared Documents: Share documents like product guides or industry reports.

✔ Collaboration: Co-author content with others, or create wiki-style content.

Encourage participation with social features: commenting, sharing, liking, and feedback channels (some public, some private). Add gamification—such as points, badges, and "top contributor" highlights—to increase engagement.

Example in practice: Omnia customers often launch topic-based knowledge communities using quick-start templates. These communities enable employees to publish articles, join threaded discussions, share documents, and earn activity-based badges. A built-in glossary boosts alignment, while community feeds and contributor highlights keep engagement high.

Image 2: Knowledge sharing community article with summary, ratings, feedback, and navigation to related content.

These intranet communities serve as living knowledge hubs. They’re practical knowledge sharing examples that enable continuous learning, effective knowledge services, and expertise building at scale.

A robust intranet also supports structured knowledge management through official documentation. This includes policies, procedures, instructions, checklists, and more.

Set up structured publishing workflows and content ownership models. Use approval processes and lifecycle management to ensure governance and accuracy. Provide draft and edition workflows so authors can easily revise and publish content.

Create directories like “Our Processes” or “Official Documents” to give employees quick access to verified resources. Encourage feedback loops so employees can suggest improvements—keeping official knowledge fresh and relevant.

Example in practice: Among competitive companies, it's common to promote valuable user-generated insights into official content using Omnia’s structured workflows. SMEs review, owners manage approvals, and governed documents are published in searchable directories with version control, feedback options, and clear metadata—ensuring relevance and trust.

Image 3: Governed business process page with structured documents like guidelines, instructions, and checklists.

This kind of governance is a cornerstone of successful intranet knowledge services and management.

Creating knowledge isn’t enough—it must also be easy to find. Here’s how to improve discoverability across your intranet and Microsoft 365 environment:

✔ Use personalized feeds to share relevant updates, targeted by role, department, or user preference.

✔ Offer quick search and advanced search with custom filters and categories (like expert profiles, community content, and official documents).

✔ Enable AI-powered semantic search for natural language queries and intelligent results. Let content owners flag key resources to be included in AI answers.

✔ Build intuitive, solution-wide intranet navigation that connects user directories, knowledge bases, and official content.

✔ Integrate your intranet with Microsoft Teams and the intranet mobile app for on-the-go access.

Example in practice: Knowledge management leaders are combining semantic search for governed content with keyword search for community material—helping employees quickly distinguish and access what they need. With AI-powered recommendations, integrated filters, and personalized notifications, Omnia customers ensure that people, policies, and insights are always within reach.

Image 4: AI-powered semantic search results delivering governed answers from documents and pages using natural language input.

These features turn your intranet into a smart, seamless experience—one that supports every user in accessing critical knowledge services and finding what they need, when they need it.

Great intranet examples don’t just push news—they enable work. With the right approach to knowledge management, knowledge sharing, and knowledge services, your intranet becomes a critical driver of collaboration, innovation, and productivity.

By investing in people directories, active communities, governed content, and intelligent search, you’ll create a knowledge solution that supports business goals—and gives your organization a competitive edge.

Explore how Omnia helps leading organizations elevate knowledge management in Microsoft 365.

✔ Request a personalized demo to see how we can support your strategy.

✔ Download this guide to learn more about elevating knowledge management with a modern intranet.

✔ Sign up for our webinar Leveraging Knowledge Sharing for Competitive Edge—a popular session filled with practical tips and real-world examples.

Or, scroll down to explore answers to common questions about intranets, knowledge communities, and people search.

An intranet acts as a central platform for organizing, accessing, and sharing organizational knowledge. It streamlines the management of official content, supports collaboration, and makes it easier for employees to find the information and people they need to do their jobs efficiently.

Effective knowledge sharing reduces duplication of work, improves decision-making, accelerates onboarding, and promotes innovation. It helps employees build on each other's expertise, which leads to better outcomes and stronger organizational performance.

Yes. SharePoint offers strong document management, collaboration, and integration capabilities that make it a powerful foundation for knowledge management—especially when extended by an intranet platform like Omnia for improved user experience and governance.

Key practices include using Teams for conversations, SharePoint for document sharing, Yammer or Viva Engage for social learning, and an intranet for structured content, expert directories, and semantic search—all tied together in a seamless Microsoft 365 experience.

Intranet people search helps employees find colleagues with specific expertise, roles, or experience. It fosters collaboration across departments, supports faster problem-solving, and ensures that valuable knowledge is shared and applied across the organization.