(a.k.a Intranet)

An Introduction

Intranet is not a spelling mistake - it is one of the currently heard buzzwords and refers to the use of Internet World Wide Web technologies within an organisation. To
decide if it is worth your while to read any further, consider the following:

• The combined corporate Internet an Intranet market will jump from $12 billion in 1995 to $208 billion by the year 2000 (courtesy Input)
• By 2000, Intranet servers will outsell Internet servers by 10 to 1 (courtesy IDC)

No one can afford to ignore the WWW. The giants now offer web enabled servers along with their own proprietary products. Microsoft, IBM, Novell, UNIX based companies have all jumped into the fray.

An Intranet runs on open TCP/IP networks and enables a company to use the same types of servers and browsers used for the WWW. Since they are based on the same standard, independent Internet protocols and technologies, they are accessible to every member within an organisation, regardless of their choice of hardware platform.

What are our gains?

Corporate Intranets can provide information in a way that is immediate, cost effective, easy to use, rich in format and versatile. Almost anybody can find a use for an Intranet. In general, Intranet applications will fit into one of three broad categories:

One to Many communication

This basically involves web-publishing, where information is stored on web pages. Information dissemination occurs when someone connects electronically using a browser (client application). The advantages to both, publisher and receiver are obvious:

• An immediate reduction in paper, cost of printing and distribution
• A single point stop for the latest, up-to-date information
• A user can grab focused, specific information (sub-contents) without having extra information thrust upon them (as in the case of a paper manual)

Two way interactive applications

The simplest example would be that of logging data such as help-desk requests which abound in most service oriented companies. This would work towards conveniently minimising telephone-tag and conventional paper-pushing.

Many to Many interaction

Readers familiar with the Net can think of this analogous to newsgroups and mailing-lists on the Internet, which facilitate the exchange of information between members.
Posted information is can be made available to all to read and respond to. This could result in the formation of specific knowledge-bases, which could be put to fruitful
use.

Examples

The above types of applications would in my opinion, definitely improve communication and productivity across the various departments of an organisation. Keeping the above in mind, some examples that easily come to mind are:

Sales & Marketing

• Product specifications, pricing charts
• Sales leads
• Competitive information
• Calendar of marketing activities and sales forecasts

Delivering the right information at the right time can make a sale happen!

Customer Service & Support

• Share up-to-date information for consistent responses to customer calls
• Be alerted immediately to important changes such as special offers and schemes, etc.
• On-line information to handle customer queries and complaints

Offer best quality service in the most cost-effective, efficient way possible

Human Resources

• Free the HR Department from answering routine questions and doing basic processing tasks
• Publish information about:
  
  - Corporate policies
  
  - Company mission and goals
  
  - Searchable telephone directories
  
  - Departmental and personal home-pages
  
  - Non-business pages (picnics, sales, etc.)

Okay, what else? Some more goodies!

• Since band width (on your LAN), will not be a real constraint, like it often is on the Internet, a lot of graphical, multimedia stuff can be incorporated into your Intranet.
• If the need arises, you can have every machine on your Intranet onto the Internet over a single Internet account. You may choose to provide your users with only Internet e-mail without surfing, only surfing or both. The connection would be through the services of an ISP of course (VSNL in India)
• All you techie guys out there can really explore the Network Centric model paradigm… Java, etc.

Requirements

Your LAN should support the TCP/IP protocol and must include an IP application installed on every computer that you want connected. A web server, copies of web browsers, the ability to do HTML and preferably CGI scripts too and you are in
business.

Can we use it? Is it easy to use? Cost? Growth path? From my interactions with corporates, I feel that most medium to large organisations (advertising agencies,
software companies, service oriented companies, manufacturing plants, etc.) can find immediate uses for an Intranet.

You have the freedom of choice, since web technology is based on open standards and therefore doesn’t lock companies into limited, and costly choices. In fact, web technology is available for nearly all leading operating systems and hardware platforms.

Using an Intranet is easy. A single front end can be used to access all internal and external resources - so users don’t need to learn multiple software packages. Recent surveys show that ease of use is considered to be the single most important factor for a corporate information system.

As for investment, Intranet applications cost far less than most other communication or workgroup systems. From personal experience, I have been able to identify and propose Intranet solutions at pleasantly affordable prices. As for growth, rest assured. One of the best features of an Intranet is scalability - growth - as and when required.

Conclusion

If you are convinced that your organisation is an intranet-candidate, then my advice is to go for it. If you’d rather test the waters first, I’d recommend that you start with a
pilot project and grow as you experience the power of the web within!

(Published in: Biznet, Feb 1997; Web Vision, April 1997; Economic Times, Oct 1998 (COMMASIA’98 Networking + Internet’98 Special))