A key requirement in today's business environment is the ability to communicate more effectively, both internally with your employees and with your external trading partners and customers.
An intranet is a private - internal - business network that enables your employees to share information, collaborate, and improve communications.
An extranet enables your business to communicate and collaborate more effectively with selected business partners, suppliers and customers. An extranet can play an important role in enhancing business relationships and improving supply chain management.
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What does an Intranet do?
In essence, an intranet is a business' own private website. It is a private business network that uses the same underlying structure and network protocols as the Internet and is protected from unauthorised users by a firewall.
Intranets enhance existing communication between employees, and provide a common knowledge base and storage area for everyone in your business.
Because intranets offer broad bandwidth, they enable users to search for, retrieve and publish information far more quickly than over the Internet. Their primary role is to enable users to search their business' store of knowledge and information from their own desktops.
The main applications typically found on an intranet are:
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publishing - delivering information and business news as directories and web documents
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document management - viewing, printing and working collaboratively on office documents such as spreadsheets
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training - accessing and delivering various types of e-learning to the user's desktop
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workflow - automating a range of administrative processes
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front-end to corporate systems - providing a common interface to corporate databases and business information systems
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email - integrating intranet content with email services so that information can be distributed effectively
The main benefits of an intranet are:
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better internal communications - corporate information can be stored centrally and accessed on an "as required" basis
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sharing of resources and best practice - a virtual community can be created to facilitate information sharing and collaborative working
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improved customer service - better access to accurate and consistent information by your staff leads to enhanced levels of customer service
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reduction in paperwork - forms can be accessed and completed on the desktop, and then forwarded as appropriate for approval, without ever having to be printed out, and with the benefit of an audit trail
What is an Extranet?
An extranet is an intranet that is made accessible to selected external partners such as business partners, suppliers, key customers etc, for exchanging data and applications and sharing information.
It can also provide remote access to corporate systems for staff who spend lots of time out of the office, for instance those in sales or customer support, or home workers.
Extranet users should be a well-defined group and access must be protected by rigorous identification routines and security features.
Why would you use an Extranet?
Businesses of all sizes are under increasing pressure to use online ordering, electronic order tracking and inventory management.
At the same time small businesses are keen to meet the demands of larger companies in terms of working flexibly, adopting new technologies and enabling the exchange of business information and transactions.
Traditionally the method of exchanging business data was via electronic data interchange. However, extranets offer a cheaper and more efficient way for businesses to connect with their trading partners.
The ability of the extranet to automate the trading tasks between you and your trading partners can lead to enhanced business relationships and help to integrate your business firmly within their supply chain.