Role of intranets Intranets are generally used for four types of applications: 1) Communication and collaboration send and receive e-mail, faxes, voice mail, and paging discussion rooms and chat rooms audio and video conferencing virtual team meetings and project collaboration 2) Web publishing develop and publish hyperlinked multi-media documents such as: policy manuals company newsletters product catalogs technical drawing training material telephone directories 3) Business operations and management order processing inventory control production setup and control management information systems database access 4) Intranet portal management centrally administer all network functions including servers, clients, security, directories, and traffic gives users access to a variety of internal and external business applications it integrates many different technologies Potential advantages of using Intranets - reduces printing, distribution, and paper costs - particularly on policy manuals, company newsletters, product catalogs, technical drawings, training material, and telephone directories - easy to use - no specialized training required - inexpensive to use (once it is set-up) - moderate initial set-up costs (hardware and software) - standardized network protocol (TCP/IP), document protocol (HTML), and file transfer protocol (ftp) already well established and suitable for all platforms - can be used throughout the whole enterprise - reduces employee training costs - reduces sales and marketing costs - reduces office administration and accounting costs - ease of access results in a more integrated company with employees communicating and collaborating more freely and more productively Potential disadvantages and limitations of Intranets - it is an evolving technology that could require upgrades and could have software incompatibility problems - security features can be inadequate - inadequate system performance management and poor user support - may not scale up adequately - some media such as video is slow - maintaining content is time consuming - some employees may be without PC’s at there desks See also: Information technology management extranet internet web portal marketing strategic management strategic planning management management information systems Finding related topics list of information technology management topics list of management topics list of computing topics list of marketing topics list of Internet topics list of economics topics list of finance topics list of accounting topics list of human resource management topics list of business law topics list of production topics list of business ethics, political economy, and philosophy of business topics list of business theorists list of economists list of corporate leaders list of companies Further reading N. Cox, Building and managing a Web services Team, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1997)
Intranets are generally used for four types of applications:
