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Intranet benefits - what is an intranet?

Use your business information more effectively – be a more flexible and efficient organisation.

An intranet is an information system with the same flexibility and power as the Internet – but dedicated to your internal users. It lets users communicate with each other, share information and resources, and even share software programs. It is, in effect, a secure scaled down version of the Internet: it has a restricted group of users – the staff in your organisation – and only the content that you choose to make available.

What are the business benefits of an intranet?

Intranets can benefit all kinds of organisations – from businesses with only a handful of employees to multi-national enterprises.

Specific advantages vary according operation of different businesses, but the primary benefits you could expect include:

• Reduced costs – thanks to decreased printing and paper requirements, improved communication, shared software, and more efficient utilisation of staff time arising from quicker access to information.
• Improved productivity – through access to a single central repository of data, reducing duplication and improving accuracy when dealing with customers and suppliers.
• Increased security – due to information sharing over an internal private network, behind firewalls.
• Better customer service – thanks to quicker more accurate access to customer account details, and pricing and product information.
• Scalability – because of the flexible nature of intranets it’s easy to add additional users, and increased capacity, at relatively modest cost.

As your use of your intranet you can also expect to enjoy:

• More cost effective IT spend – by developing your existing, flexible infrastructure rather than replacing it.
• Increased competitiveness – thanks to better information access, improved customer service, knowledge sharing, and being quicker to market.
• Streamlined administration – with many standard tasks such as expense reports, timesheets, and calendar sharing becoming largely self-administered.
• Virtual networking – as the staff in your office, on the road, and at home can all access and update the same core data.
• Easier training of new employees – intranets are well suited to carrying induction programmes.
• Calendar and diary sharing – your intranet can carry individual diaries, schedules for workgroups and bookable resources such as meeting rooms for efficient working.
• Extranet – your intranet can be extended outside of your organisation, as an extranet - allowing trading partners controlled access to some or all of the information you hold. Not all of your intranet information needs to be on your extranet – you can control access to commercially sensitive information by password.