Intranets

An intranet is a private computer network that securely share part of an organization's information or operations with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the most visible service, the internal website. The same concepts and technologies of the Internet such as clients and servers are used to build an intranet.

Briefly, an intranet can be understood as "a private version of the Internet," or as a version of the Internet confined to an organization.

Explained

Intranets differ from "Extranets" in that the former is generally restricted to employees of the organization while extranets can generally be accessed by customers, suppliers, or other approved parties.

Increasingly, intranets are being used to deliver tools and applications, e.g., collaboration (to facilitate working in groups and teleconferencing) or sophisticated corporate directories, sales and CRM tools, project management etc., to advance productivity.

Intranets are also being used as culture change platforms. For example, large numbers of employees discussing key issues in an online forum could lead to new ideas.

Benefits

• Workforce productivity:
  • Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster.
  • With the help of a web browser interface such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, users can access data held in any database the organization wants to make available.
• Time: With intranets, organizations can make more information available to employees on a "pull" basis rather than being deluged indiscriminately by emails.
• Communication:
  • Intranets can serve as powerful tools for communication within an organization, vertically and horizontally.
  • Useful to communicate strategic initiatives that have a global reach throughout the organization.
  • Staff have the opportunity to keep up-to-date with the strategic focus of the organization.
• 'Cumbersome' corporate knowledge maintained and easily accessed throughout the company:
  • Employee manuals, benefits documents, company policies, business standards, newsfeeds, and even training, can be accessed using common Internet standards.
  • Each business unit can update the online copy of a document.
• Business operations and management.
• Cost-effective: Users can view information and data via web-browser rather than maintaining physical documents such as procedure manuals, internal phone list and requistion forms.
• Promote common corporate culture: Every user is viewing the same information within the Intranet.
• Enhance Collaboration: With information easily accessible by all authorised users, teamwork is enabled.
• Cross-platform Capability.