The compelling business reason for a global intranet

I was recently asked to help a company define the compelling reasons they should have a global intranet. In other words, why not just stay with a corporate intranet and individual country and business unit, market or other local intranets.

What would you say to the CEO or CO who says "tell me why it's essential".

If you find yourself in this situation one day, points to explore are:

• Is there an intermediary level in your organisation that requires coordination and consolidation of information and applications? A divisional level or a regional level. If so, how does this level work vis-a-vis the global center and vis-a-vis the entities they manage or guide?
• Do your teams who are closest to customers have easy, reliable access to the current intranet - to the information, tools, product and service information and resources they need?
• Do your customer-facing and other teams have the means of sharing ideas and knowledge, of contacting experts throughout the organisation?
• Does your senior management have other solutions for sending information and messages to employees, and being confident that everyone will see them?
• Do you have, or will you have, global processes? Have you or are you in the process of standardising applications, information flows, etc? If so, do you also have a global information platform that lets employees see the big picture, help them understand the global strategy?

There are certainly other answers to the question. Please jump in if you have comments.