Advantages & Disadvantages of Intranet

Advantages of Intranet

There are number of advantages of intranet discussed below

Intranets offering workforce productivity which can help user to find and observe information very fast.
User may also use applications according to their roles and tasks. Through web browser a user can get
access to entire contents of any website from anywhere or any time. Intranet also increase the ability of
employees by performing their job confidently very fast, and accurately.

Intranet permits business companies to share out information to employees according to their need or
requirements. Employees may also link to appropriate data at their expediency.

The best advantage offered by intranet is communications within an organization or business company,
landscape or portrait. Intranets are helpful to converse planned initiative that has an international reach
all through the organization. The well known examples of transportation are chat, email, and blogs. A
actual world example of Intranet is Nestle had a number of food processing plants.

The most significant advantage of Intranet is Web publishing which permits burdensome corporate
knowledge to be continued and effortlessly access all through the company using Web technologies and
hypermedia. The familiar examples of web publishing consist of training, news feed, company polices,
documents, and employee manual. Intranet can be accessed general internet standards such as CGI
applications, Flash files, and Acrobat files. Each unit can bring up to date the online copy of a document
and intranet always provides the most recent version to employees.

Intranet offering business operations and administration solutions because it also being used as a
platform of mounting and organizing applications across the internet world.

Another advantage of Intranet is time saving because there is no need to maintain physical documents
such as procedure manual, requisition forms, and internet phone list.

Now intranet facilitates their user o view and gets information and data via web browser. Intranet also
save the money of any organization on printing, publishing and overall maintenance.

Through Intranet common corporate culture every user can view the similar information.

Intranet offer improve teamwork through which teamwork is enabled and all certified users can get
access to information.

Intranet providing cross platform capability for UNIX, Mac, Windows.

Intranet offering their user to write applications on their browser without cross-browser compatibility
issues.

Intranet is a Web-based tool that permits users to produce a customized site according their
requirements. You can pull all Internet actions and most wanted contented into a single page which
make easier to access.

Disadvantages of Intranet

Intranet has great features for interconnected manners but has some disadvantages too

Management does need to stop control of specific information, this problem can be minimized but with
appropriate prudence.

The other disadvantage of Intranet is security issue

Intranet gathered everything in one location which is really good but if it is not prearranged then you
will spoil everything.

The cost of intranet is very high but has lots of advantages after implementing.

1) Information on almost every subject imaginable.

2) Powerful search engines

3) Ability to do research from your home versus research libraries.

4) Information at various levels of study. Everything from scholarly articles to ones directed at children.

5) Message boards where people can discuss ideas on any topic. Ability to get wide range of opinions.
People can find others that have a similar interest in whatever they are interested in.

6) The internet provides the ability of emails. Free mail service to anyone in the country.

7) Platform for products like SKYPE, which allow for holding a video conference with anyone in the world
who also has access.

8) Friendships and love connections have been made over the internet by people involved in
love/passion over similar interests.

9) Things such as Yahoo Answers and other sites where kids can have readily available help for
homework.

10) News, of all kinds is available almost instantaneously. Commentary, on that news, from every
conceivable viewpoint is also available.
Disadvantages:

1) There is a lot of wrong information on the internet. Anyone can post anything, and much of it is
garbage.

2) There are predators that hang out on the internet waiting to get unsuspecting people in dangerous
situations.

3) Some people are getting addicted to the internet and thus causing problems with their interactions of
friends and loved ones.

4) Pornography that can get in the hands of young children too easily.

5) Easy to waste a lot of time on the internet. You can start surfing, and then realize far more time has
passed than you realized. Internet and television together of added to the more sedentary lifestyles of
people which further exacerbates the obesity problem.

6) Internet has a lot of "cheater" sites. People can buy essays and pass them off as their own far more
easily than they used to be able to do.

7) There are a lot of unscrupulous businesses that have sprung up on the internet to take advantage of
people.

8) Hackers can create viruses that can get into your personal computer and ruin valuable data.

9) Hackers can use the internet for identity theft.

10) It can be quite depressing to be on the internet and realize just how uneducated so many people
have become in today's society.

Internet
Definition

Related Terms

A means of connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere in the world via dedicated routers
and servers. When two computers are connected over the Internet, they can send and receive all kinds
of information such as text, graphics, voice, video, and computer programs.
No one owns Internet, although several organizations the world over collaborate in its functioning and
development. The high-speed, fiber-optic cables (called backbones) through which the bulk of the
Internet data travels are owned by telephone companies in their respective countries.

The Internet grew out of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Wide Area Network (then called
ARPANET) established by the US Department Of Defense in 1960s for collaboration in military research
among business and government laboratories.

Later universities and other US institutions connected to it. This resulted in ARPANET growing beyond
everyone's expectations and acquiring the name 'Internet.'

The development of hypertext based technology (called World Wide web, WWW, or just the Web)
provided means of displaying text, graphics, and animations, and easy search and navigation tools that
triggered Internet's explosive worldwide growth.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using the Internet

People constantly use their knowledge and creativity to invent new things that will help them in

everyday life. Technology has been making enormous progress and today we can do things we

couldn't even imagine 50 years ago. The development of technology is strictly related to the process

of globalisation. The Internet has given us the opportunity to connect to any place in the world, to

share or get information in only a few minutes. It seems like we are getting out of borders and we

can bring the whole world in our room by using our computer. But, is the Internet really one of the

greatest improvements lately, or does it also have some negative effects?

The internet is a global system of computer networks which serves millions of users worldwide.

There is a huge amount of public, private, local, business and governmental networks. People do all

sorts of things on the Internet. They learn, pay their bills, do shopping, communicate with friends,

even work and earn money. The best thing about the Internet is that getting information is much

faster and easier. It is possible to instantly approach information and systematically analyze them.

Moreover, it is possible to share them with other users and get in touch with someone with same

interests. Many business people cooperate successfully over the Internet without knowing each
other personally. The Internet didnt only change the way we communicate and trade with

information, but the way we learn, show our emotions, have fun and make money, too. Lately, social

networks have become extremely popular. There are lots of users who except communicating with

friends on the net, like writing a blog or discussing on forum.

Despite the fact that the Internet is saving our time and it is free and public, it has recently become a

problem, too. Many people, especially the young, spend too much time on it. One dares to say the

youth is exactly the most vulnerable group of Internet users. Scientists predict that the Internet will

be one of the most problematic addictions in the future. Some people have already stopped hanging

out with friends and started to live a virtual life. Furthermore, people are losing their social

characteristics, they are adapting them to indirect communication on the Internet. They show their

emotions with symbols and signs and forgetting how to act in real society. Also, the negativities are

the lack of privacy and a dangerous possibility of stealing money, information and identity, illegal

distribution of music and videos, as well. There are many cases of paedophilia and pornography, too.

All in all, the Internet has changed the world, thats for sure. How useful it will be, mostly depends on

ourselves and the reasons why we use it. The positive sides are quick sharing and finding

information, getting in touch with anyone and the ability to work from home. But we must be aware

of the possible problems with paedophiles, gambling, violence, nationalism, stealing of intellectual

property, etc. I think parents have a big role in the battle against this modern addiction. Youth should

be educated about behaviour on the Internet and supervised. It is necessary to be up to date and to

be sensible.

Croatia, Izabela Musi, 3rd grade

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication
[communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held

responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

Extranet Definition
What is an Extranet?
Extranets let you share information and integrate operations with customers, partners and vendors.

An extranet is a private virtual space to securely collaborate, share information or integrate operations
with travelling teams, suppliers, vendors, partners, or customers. A few examples are a sales extranet
containing order forms and client directories for the sales team, a partner extranet enabling
management of joint tasks, or a customer extranet portal where you collaborate on specifications
documents with clients.

Extranets, Intranets and the Internet

Since the above parties are spread over diverse locations, extranets use the internet as a network to
reach out to these parties. A company typically has multiple dedicated extranets for different parties
depending on information needs and nature of relationship. Extranets can sometimes also be seen as an
extension of the company intranet or internal network where external parties are brought into the
fold of the companys private network with access to specific areas or information.

How Do You Implement Extranets?

Customized Extranets

An IT firm is hired to build extranets from scratch according to exact specifications and user needs.
Servers are set up, programming is done from ground zero, and dedicated staff is recruited to maintain
the extranet. This approach is suitable when an extranet with highly specific and specialized
requirements is needed. It typically costs thousands of dollars and takes months before a solution is set
up.

Enterprise Extranet Tools

Certain solution providers like offer specialized tools like Microsoft Sharepoint, which allow enterprises
to publish extranets without having to program everything from scratch. Although such software save
companies the need to reinvent the wheel, they are still complex and costly, and hence suitable only to
the needs and budgets of large organizations. Servers have to be set up, IT staff hired, and the solution
maintained on an ongoing basis.

Hosted Extranets The HyperOffice Approach

Earlier, small to mid sized companies could hardly dream about being able to set up tailored extranets
for traveling teams, partners or customers because of the costs and effort. But in recent years, the
hosted, software-as-a-service approach has enabled us to provide growing companies access to
technologies which were earlier available only to mega organizations.

Companies dont need to set up hardware servers or download software, but rather sign up online and
use (rather than own) a robust extranet software which resides on HyperOffices secure servers.
HyperOffice is available for a low monthly fee and is perfect for growing business needs instant setup,
extensive features and "point and click" functionality.

An extranet can add value to your company by helping you communicate and collaborate more
effectively with clients, customers, and partners. Particularly in the business-to-business market, an
extranet can give your company an edge over the competition and save you money by streamlining
traditional business functions and cutting overhead costs.

Extranets offer small businesses many other advantages:

Increased productivity. As you automate processes that were traditionally done manually, bottlenecks
will disappear and your companys productivity will increase. Critical information wont get lost in the
mail or buried in an e-mail inbox, and busy employees wont miss or forget key events. An extranet can,
for example, monitor business activities and trigger specific actions, such as automatically placing an
order with a supplier when your inventory drops below a certain level.

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Reduced margin of error. An extranet can reduce your margin of error, especially when you use it to give
specific groups access to internal applications. This could involve something as simple as giving
customers access to their order histories, or something as complex as processing orders from
distributors and suppliers.

Flexibility. When you use an extranet to make information and applications available to partners, clients,
and customers, everyone can operate when and where its most convenient. This self-serve approach
frees you from unnecessary meetings and phone tag, and it cuts down on the costs associated with in-
person information exchanges. For example, an extranet may allow you to provide customer-service
information outside of regular business hours.

Timely and accurate information. On an extranet you can instantly change, edit, and update sensitive
information such as price lists or inventory information. Compared to typical paper-based publishing
processes, an extranet offers a unique opportunity to get hot information into the right hands before it
cools and before its out-of-date.

Shorter time to market. If your business is not moving at Internet speed, you risk being left behind. An
extranet can help you get your products to market more quickly by making proposals and specifications
available to suppliers, and giving clients and partners up-to-date information on current projects.

Reduced inventory. One of the hallmarks of a business-to-business extranet is its impact on supply-chain
management. By linking your inventory system directly to a supplier, you can process orders as soon as
the system knows you need them, thus reducing the stock you keep on hand and making the
procurement process more efficient.

Build customer loyalty. Extranets make business easier for your customers. The more you make timely,
accurate information available to your customers, the more likely it is youll keep their business.

As these examples demonstrate, an extranet can help you spend less on supplies, staffing, and other
overhead costs. Given the investment an extranet requires, it may take time for savings to become
apparent. Over a period of weeks or months, however, eliminating even one paper-based process can
yield dramatic saving

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Extranets

An extranet works like the Internet in that it is a method of communication for remote business
associates using their computers and other electronic devices. While the Internet is public, an extranet is
private, and the extranet owner decides who receives an invitation to access it. An extranet involves
extensive identification routines and is accessible by clearly defined affiliate groups in the organization.

Improved Flexibility

Because of trends in innovation and technology advancements, businesses are embracing electronic
forms of transactions and communication. Extranets can help boost the level of convenience by which
you conduct these exchanges because they offer an efficient way for organizations to connect with
affiliates. Since extranets are usually accessible 24 hours per day and there is relatively no downtime,
associates, clients, vendors and other business partners can communicate with your business at a time
that is convenient for them.
Increased Efficiency

Because you grant direct access to information on your network to associates of your choosing, the use
of extranets can improve efficiency and increase productivity. For example, a customer can get answers
to questions regarding your policy information without having to wait for a response from your
customer service staff. When used to provide access to internal applications, direct access to your
business information via your extranet enables users to change and update their personal information,
which not only increases productivity but helps to reduce errors.

Security

On the one hand, security is an added advantage if you implement an extranet because you control who
accesses your site and thus who gets access to your data. Conversely, extranets can open your systems
up to breaches in system security because you grant outsiders access to your system and internal
databases. To grant access to external associates, you must create openings in your firewalls. Multiple
openings in your firewalls create higher risks for unauthorized entries. Also, keep in mind that extranets
grant access to proprietary data, and this access to your information can provide another opportunity
for unauthorized users to access sensitive and confidential information.

Expense

It can be costly to implement an extranet as you may have to foot the cost of hardware, software,
manpower and any other associated costs, including training of external affiliates. Repairs and
maintenance can also increase the expense of managing an extranet. While start-up costs may be
significant, you may experience reductions in other expense areas if you implement an extranet. For
example, because your affiliates have direct access to documents on your network, costs associated
with mailing or faxing information are significantly reduced or eliminated.

Intranet: Advantages and Disadvantages of Intranet for Business Enterprises

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Intranet: Advantages and Disadvantages of Intranet for Business Enterprises!

So far, the Internet has been viewed as a communication system meant for linking an enterprise with
the rest of the world. However, an-other important business application of the Internet infrastructure is
Intranet. Intranet is a network designed for distributing the infor-mation resources to each individual
within the enterprise using Internet technologies.

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Intranet generally consists of internal corpo-rate web servers made available to employees across the
LAN or private dial up access. Using the corporate databases and other re-positories of information and
documents, these web servers bring diverse kinds of information to employees. The authorised
employ-ees use a common front end web browser to browse through the vast reservoir of information
available within the company.

The inspiration for Intranet came, perhaps from the success of e- mail within the business enterprises.
The IT resource requirements are quite simple and normally existing hardware can meet the
re-quirement of Intranet. On the software front, one needs a web server with a single client the web
browser. The web server may be configured on a LAN and may be linked over a WAN for multi-locational
access.

Interestingly, the Intranet may or may not be connected to Internet and in case it is connected to
Internet, security measures shall have to be taken to eliminate the chances of unauthorised access.
Thus, Intranet provides access to corporate information repository to the authorised user with a
minimal cost, time and effort.

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The architecture of Intranet can be conceived as an integration of the four basic elements corporate
information services, web server, communication links and Intranet users. The logical link-age among
these elements is shown in Fig. 12.2.

Why Intranet?

Although, the concept of Intranet draws heavily on the Internet technology, the need for Intranet arises
more from the business pres-sures to transform the way business is conducted.

Some of the im-portant factors responsible for the popularity of Intranet are listed below:

(a) Need to cut costs:

The cost effectiveness is the mantra in the competitive world of today. Intranet attempts to streamline
flow of information and is user directed. That saves on time and cost of communicating information.

(b) Dynamics of markets:

Today, changes take place more rapidly in the market and company than ever before. Therefore, the
information needs to be reported and exchanged more quickly among all those associated with the
company, including em-ployees, customers and vendors.

(c) Changing work environment:

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As the business and markets be-come scattered, employees have to be mobile and away from of-fice.
Thus, it becomes imperative for the workforce to use less expensive means of communication to remain
in touch with the office.

(d) Customer support:

The increasing role of customer support in the marketing strategy has changed the whole concept of
com-munication in enterprises. A direct contact of the customer with the customer support department
through Intranet directs the job to specialist and ensures better handling of complaints.

The related advantage is that it also permits the sales force to look after more crucial problems than to
act as intermediary between the customer and customer support department for the routine kind of
complaints.

Advantages:

The advantages of Intranet over the conventional com-munication systems can be listed as below:

1. Intranet is an easy, economical and fast system of communica-tion within the enterprise. It offers
opportunities to keep every concerned individual informed irrespective of the location. It also helps in
reducing travel time as the communication between people in the business enterprise can be more
frequent and less expensive, particularly when the persons desiring to communi-cate are located far
away from each other.

2. It serves information automatically and thus, one does have to face the contempt of not being aware
of an important piece of informa-tion. Thus, demand for information is more frequent and detailed.
3. Intranet replaces grapevine as it permits inter employee com-munication with more transparency and
free expression of views. It enables employees at various levels to pose problems/ques-tions, participate
in discussions and contribute answers to thorny problems of the company. The concept of collective
expertise can be given a concrete shape with the help of Intranet.

4. It improves productivity of the manager. With Intranet, the man-ager can spend more time in
analysing information and not in seeking information and waiting for its delivery.

5. Intranet helps in eliminating the latency of information in the enterprise and makes the flow of
information need-driven than availability-driven.

Disadvantages:

The disadvantages of Intranet are few and can be overcome by proper planning and support from the
top manage-ment. Some of the important disadvantages are as follows:

1. One of the major disadvantages is the risk of security to the corporate information resource. The
intranet exposes the corpo-rate information resource to the risk of loss of privacy and even
unauthorised alteration. The Intranet technology is still quite fragile and the risk of security and privacy
of information on Intranet is higher.

2. Intranet poses another challenge before the enterprise and that relates to the need to change the
work culture for effectiveness of the Intranet. The executives, particularly at the top level of managerial
hierarchy are in the habit of delegating the han-dling of information, including mail to their secretaries.

Quite often, the e-mails are printed out by the secretaries and dumped on the table of the executive by
the secretary. The practice of sharing passwords with secretaries could be fatal for the execu-tive and
the enterprise, in case of over ambitious or dissatisfied secretary. Another cultural change that is
necessary is in the speed of response.
As the Intranet communications are conven-ient and less expensive, the number of mails/queries is
likely to increase and if these are not responded to quickly, they will pile up and the order will give way
to chaos in the enterprise.

3. Another fear that is being talked about these days is the danger of reduced face-to-face interaction
between employees leading to im-personalisation of the enterprise. However, studies have yet to prove
anything of this sort.

The Intranet is gaining popularity, particularly among those busi-ness enterprises that are having
branches and projects scattered over a wider geographical area. It is likely to be the key application of
Internet. The biggest impact of web will be how companies use it to stay in close contact with their
customers, said Bill Gates once. However, the reliability and safety issues deserve closer examination.

Intranet and Work Groups:

Many decisions in business enterprises are taken collectively by a group of persons. Either these persons
are directly or indirectly as-sociated with the implementation of the decision or their work is likely to be
influenced by the outcome of the implementation of the decision.

Such decisions are called group decisions and such persons are collectively called Work Group. The
need for group deci-sion making becomes more important in case of group activities or in the case of
decisions that are likely to influence the performance of different persons or organisational units in the
enterprise.

For example, the decision regarding a proposed change in the inputs for a construction project would
influence the performance of the designing department, construction department, commercial
depart-ment and procurement department. In such a situation, any deci-sion on the part of the
procurement or designing department only may lead to a conflict.

Decision making by work groups has the advantage of availability of larger number of alternatives,
satisfac-tion of each number of the work group regarding the decision mak-ing process and its outcome,
and better quality of decision as larger number of comments are available regarding the proposal before
it is accepted and implemented.
The process of arriving at such a decision may be different for different decision situations. The decision
may be taken by a man-ager after consulting the concerned members of the group or it may be taken
collectively by discussing in details the pros and cons of the decision and arriving at a consensus.

It could be on the basis of the majority view as well. Whatever may be the mode of establish-ing the
collective view of the work group, it is essential that the adequate communication take place among the
members of the group before the decision is taken.

The communication among the members may take place in a meeting or it could be in the form of
written or oral communication with the person coordinating the process. Intranet is being viewed as an
important tool for improv-ing the communication among the members of the work group.

Intranet can help in ensuring that the information is available to the decision-maker without being asked
for specifically. Large vol-ume of information may be exchanged from far-flung locations without much
of communication cost. Intranet promotes exchange of information as a habit for the members of the
work group. Intranet generally provides facilities for electronic meetings and group deci-sion support
systems in addition to e-mail among the members of each work group.

With the availability of software for facilitating the communica-tion in work groups (also termed as
Group Ware), it is becoming increasingly easy to ensure that work groups become more effec-tive in
decision making process. LOTUS NOTES is one of the popu-lar software for developing an effective
system of group decision making.

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