Inside the Intranet

Organizations thrive on information, yet access to it is not always easy to come by. People tend to rely on informal networking--the old "who do you know" routine. With an intranet, there is an enterprise-wide repository, an easy way to consult annual reports, benefits handbooks, schedule a conference room, locate an expense report form, and review company vacation policies. This information is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to anyone who has access, whether on the road, working at home or in a remote office. No more waiting for the answer to a question as it winds its way through traditional company channels. More sophisticated intranet features let employees fill out online forms, consult visual archives and order supplies.

The benefits and implications of an intranet can be enormous. For instance, many companies distribute printed documents--newsletters, handbooks, reports. Think about the printing costs alone, not to mention the environmental impact of all that paper. By making these documents available electronically, expenses can be reduced dramatically. Another advantage is the ease of updating information. Corporate musical chairs render internal phone directories obsolete before they go to press. Once the directories are online, phone numbers can be changed with just a few keystrokes.

Beyond the bottom line, electronic document sharing promotes new ways to collaborate. No longer is it necessary to get everyone together in one room to discuss a project. Preliminary drawings, designs and data are shared online, via virtual meetings, with participants at their own desks, looking at a document and discussing it on the phone or with online telephony. Teams of people around the world can work together without incurring a dime in travel expenses.

Resource sharing isn't restricted to text documents. Because many companies have high-speed LANs, or Local Area Networks, video clips, animation and audio can reside on an intranet server and be delivered to employees' desktops. This is a good way to see highlights of a corporate meeting. It's also valuable for company training, enabling staff to learn new skills at their own pace.

Just as e-mail has democratized communications, allowing people to by-pass corporate gatekeepers by sending messages directly to executives, intranets have a similar effect. If information is power, what happens when it is shared by everyone? When anyone can contribute ideas to a project in its formative stage, how does that impact the process? For traditional top-down companies, times are indeed changing. For some, this can be perceived as a threat, for others an opportunity.

As competition in the global marketplace drives the need for ever greater efficiency, intranets will surely become the neural network for business. A study by International Data Corporation on return on investment (ROI) for corporate intranets reveals why. "Typical implementations are achieving ROIs well over 1,000 percent." That's a powerful incentive for any business to invest in this new technology.

For more information about intranets, we recommend the The Intranet Journal.

Last update: Jan 5, 2010