Russian Intranet Awards 2021

Elena Bogdanova
9 min readApr 16, 2021

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Russian Intranet Awards is the first professional intranet contest in Russia designed to develop the local intranet industry, as well as to encourage and motivate strong intranet leaders and teams. The first contest started in 2019, applications for the second were accepted in November-December 2020.

The Russian Intranet Awards winners were announced on March 18 in Moscow. To celebrate the winners we organized a ceremony, accompanied by live music, special lights, and decoration. Guests had a dress code to follow. We know that the work of intranet teams is often invisible in the companies, therefore we wanted to create a festive celebration to acknowledge leaders, their personal contribution, teams, and excellent projects. We wanted to make them feel like real stars. We believe that strong intranet managers deserve it!

Short video of the Russian Intranet Awards 2021 ceremony

The main sponsor of the ceremony was the Bitrix24 corporate intranet platform. The event was also sponsored by QSOFT, a developer of the largest corporate portals in Russia, and Intry, the first out-of-the-box solution for Sharepoint in Russia.

The jury of the #RIawards 2021

Applications for the Russian Intranet Awards 2021 were evaluated by 8 jury members from Australia, Great Britain, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia. The jury consisted of world intranet experts, consultants with 10+ years of experience, winners of international intranet awards, and their founders.

Jury members of the Russian Intranet Awards 2021

Catherine Grenfell, Australia — former community manager at StepTwo Forum and organizer of the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards and the Digital Employee Experience Conference at StepTwo;

Olga Bogomolova, Russia — ex-head of Knowledge Management Department at Domodedovo airport, winner of three international awards;

Jonas Bladt Hansen, Denmark — founder of Inversus, Denmark, an international consultant on digital transformation, winner of the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards;

Yulia Bolshova, Russia — product lead at M.Video-Eldorado, ex-head of Avito HR automation, winner of the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards;

Sam Marshall, UK — founder of Clearbox Consulting, jury member for the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards and the Interact Intranet Awards;

Sharon O’Dea, Netherlands — digital consultant and co-founder of Lithos Partners, jury member of the Digital Impact Awards;

Giacomo Mason, Italy — Internal Communications Consultant, founder of Intranet Management and the Intranet Italia Champions;

Egor Petrov, Russia — the owner of M.Video-Eldorado intranet, winner of the Russian Intranet Awards 2020 in the category “Intranet of the Year” and the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards.

Participants 2021

The long list of the Russian Intranet Awards 2021 included 15 projects that were sent to the jury for evaluation. Projects were from banks, IT companies, telecommunications, retail, FMCG, government agencies. Many strong projects we saw from the financial sector. For the first time, companies from Kazakhstan and Poland applied for the competition.

The list of the #RIawards 2021 nominees: VTB Bank, DOM.RF, Moscow Department of Information Technologies together with Hopper, Renaissance Insurance, Maxi, Pervy Bit, PSB, RN-BashNIPIneft, Sportmaster, FINAM, Beeline (Kazakhstan), Bank Spoldzielczy (Poland), DNS, Coca Cola HBC Russia.

All projects had to go through a two-stage assessment. They were first assessed on a 10-point scale in each of the 6 criteria: concept, implementation, results, promotion, teamwork, and leadership. At the second stage, the jury members chose the nominations in which the project could win.

Award prize

The winners of the Russian Intranet Awards receive recognition from international and Russian experts, invitations to conferences, publication of a case study in the Rivelty.Abatjour, as well as a unique award prize.

Award prize at the Russian Intranet Awards 2021

The quality of applications, expertise, and the level of preparation of the teams was so strong this year that we increased the number of prizes and made two awards: gold and silver. The gold is awarded to the teams with the highest number of points in the category, and the silver to the projects that are slightly behind the winners.

Winners of the #RIawards 2021

Nomination “Intranet Leader 2021”

The main prize in this category is awarded to the head of the intranet project for leadership, professionalism, expertise, and outstanding achievements in the industry. The calculation takes into account the result of the project and the number of votes from the jury.

Catherine Grenfell, Australia, the Russian Intranet Awards Ambassador, the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards jury:

“Once again Russian teams have proven, they are world-class in delivering intranets that are well ahead of most countries in the world. This year’s entries specifically demonstrated excellence in researching and understanding staff needs, personalization and promotion. I was particularly impressed by how many teams adapted to the challenges of the 2020 lockdowns and went above and beyond to support staff coping with the craziness of working remotely.”

Ekaterina Tyshkovskaya, gold winner in the nomination “Intranet leader 2021”

Gold — Ekaterina Tyshkovskaya, Head of Internal Communications, VTB Bank

Ekaterina initiated and implemented the project of a united intranet for three banks: VTB, VTB24, Bank of Moscow. She created Omni-channels for internal communications in M.Video, implemented a corporate social network in Beeline, and developed an internal communications strategy for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Ekaterina is one of the TOP-10 corporate communications specialists in Russia.

Nomination “Intranet as a Business tool”

The prize in this nomination is awarded to a project where tools and services of the intranet successfully solve the company’s business problems: improve work approach, optimize business processes, save the time of employees and the company’s budget.

Gold — Bank Spodzielczy, Poland

The Bank Spodzielczy team has created a mature digital workspace with electronic document management, an application system, and other tools collected in one place. The bank’s intranet integrates with all internal systems, reports are generated automatically, and employees can create content.

Silver — Moscow Department of Information Technologies in cooperation with Hopper IT

The DIT Moscow team together with Hopper IT has created a knowledge base and a self-service intranet where an employee can find answers to all questions. The intranet united 15 information systems into one and created a single interface for different service departments. The team also created an online support chat that handles 50% of requests.

Nomination “Intranet Team 2021”

The victory in the nomination is awarded to a team for jointly overcoming all difficulties from the beginning to the end of the project. The jury evaluates the clear distribution of roles in the team, unusual approaches to problem-solving, and high project results.

Giacomo Mason, Italy, Internal Communications Consultant, Founder of Intranet Management and the Intranet Italia Champions:

“The intranet is created and exists thanks to the participation and encouragement of participation of everybody in the company. I should note that the intranet is not a project created in the central office for all other offices, but a collective project that includes the development of the team, the entire organizational structure, and the company. A large and friendly team is essential for the success of such projects.”

The PSB team — gold winner in the nomination “Intranet team 2021”

Gold — the PSB(Promsvyazbank) team

Mikhail Ivanov, Alexandra Kudryavtseva, Oksana Donets, Nikolai Chervonenko, Tatiana Dragunova, Kirill Garbuz, Anton Maslennikov, Dmitry Kuznetsov, Victoria Khusainova, Anton Oreshnikov, Anastasia Semeniv, Andrey Bukata, Maria Makeeva, Marina Kadykova, Vakhtang Chanturia, Nadezhda Nam.

The PSB team completely relaunched the intranet: they made a renovation and moved away from multi-platform. Now the intranet has a task manager, dashboards, and onboarding platform. The intranet, thanks to the team, has become a mature internal media with the Newton character, as well as active communities, groups, and cross-functional teams. 3 teams are working on the intranet: communication, design, and development.

Silver winner in the nomination “Intranet team 2021” — RN-BashNIPIneft Team

Silver — RN-BashNIPIneft Team

Dmitry Kashtanov, Evgenia Mikhailova, Anna Shafikova, Julia Kochetkova, Aigul Yagudina, Oksana Manylova, Elvina Agisheva, Stanislav Arkhipov, Dina Arslanova, Kamil Kashaev, Sergey Protasov, Sergey Bashlykov, Christina Imshieva, Alexey Sidorov.

RN-BashNIPIneft has developed a mobile version of the intranet with a built-in messenger. The team released the MVP during the pandemic in just 2 weeks. The mobile version allowed employees to inform the company about their well-being every day, and managers — to monitor the situation. The intranet became the most popular tool in the company, and the team was able to automate the process of collecting information about employees: it took 9 man-hours before the development of the mobile version.

Best Intranet Promotion Campaign

The prize in this category goes to the best promotion campaign of an intranet or its new services. The involvement of top managers, ambassadors, and informal leaders is important for victory in both online and offline campaigns. The jury evaluates unusual formats and unique ideas that increase intranet traffic.

Sharon O’Dea, Netherlands, digital consultant and co-founder of Lithos Partners, jury member of the Digital Impact Awards

“A lot of projects have created a strong brand for their intranet, thus increasing its awareness in the company. Another key trend that I noticed was that the contestants sought to show what tools are on the intranet and how employees can benefit. Some companies have turned the challenge of working remotely into an opportunity to try new and innovative ways of team building. ”

Gold winner in the nomination “Best Intranet promotion campaign” — Beeline Kazakhstan

Gold — Beeline Kazakhstan

Beeline Kazakhstan turned the corporate social network into the main communication tool during the pandemic. To promote the social network and improve awareness, the team created daily channels and implemented 229 activities: online concerts, stormings, challenges, charity auctions, yoga classes. Through Workplace, employees received psychological assistance during quarantine, and the frequency of dialogue with top management increased more than 17 times.

Silver winner in the nomination “Best Intranet promotion campaign”— Coca Cola HBC Russia

Silver — Coca Cola HBC Russia

To promote the intranet and the company’s new strategy, the Coca-Cola HBC Russia team has developed and launched 13 comics entitled “Moments of Consumption — Moments of Life”. The company has created a separate animated landing page, launched an online quiz, and a “share the moment” photo contest. The campaign got positive feedback from colleagues and top management, and the activities increased engagement among young employees and united colleagues around one idea.

Main nomination “Intranet of the Year”

The prize in the most important nomination of the Russian Intranet Awards goes to a project recognized as the best in all areas of intranet development: the best concept, successful implementation, outstanding results, effective promotion, excellent teamwork, and inspiring leadership.

Sam Marshall, UK, Founder of Clearbox Consulting, Jury Member of the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards and Interact Intranet Awards for the main Intranet of the Year nomination:

“It’s been an absolute pleasure to be a judge in this competition because the standard really was that high to lots of inventive approaches, lots of ways in which organizations were very directly listening to their employees.”

Gold winner in the nomination “Intranet of the Year” — Maxi

Gold — Maxi

The intranet of Maxi is a personalized single point of access to all services. It is available to all employees of the company and from any device. On the intranet, employees can order help, contact colleagues, undergo training at the learning management system, create an event, participate in working groups and say “thank you” to colleagues. The team developed a mobile app and saved the company more than $100 000 a year.

Silver winner in the nomination “Intranet of the Year” — DOM.RF

Silver — DOM.RF

The DOM.RF team made a complete renovation of the intranet and created an eco-system of user services. More than 200 services and requests were put together in the intranet, and interactive reports were created for top managers, where they could see the results of remote work. During the pandemic, the level of employee burnout could be seen on the intranet — artificial intelligence analyzed employee behavior by 100 indicators.

Silver winner in the nomination “Intranet of the Year” — Renaissance Insurance

Silver — Renaissance Insurance

Renaissance Insurance intranet is a digital workplace created from scratch. The team was able to launch the first version of the intranet in 3 months, and during the pandemic developed a mobile version. The intranet fully supports the work of employees, and also contains tools for cross-functional teams. The team involved top management in promoting the intranet.

Read more about the Russian Intranet Awards at awards.rivelty.ru. More case studies and articles you can find at abazhur.rivelty.ru.

If you would like to participate in the #RIawards next year please email us at awards@rivelty.ru.

Follow me on Linkedin. Rivelty.Intranet page is here.

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Elena Bogdanova
Elena Bogdanova

Written by Elena Bogdanova

Intranet consultant and managing director of Rivelty.Intranet. Leader of Russian Intranet community and keynote speaker at Russian and world conferences.