How Businesses use the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets.
How Businesses use the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets
Given its capabilities and widespread use, the Internet is a powerful business tool.
Companies can communicate efficiently and cost-effectively with employees and potential customers worldwide.
As the figure below shows, businesses use the Internet to:
Sell their products and services online
Generate brand or name awareness
Reach new audiences with product information
Improve customer service and support
Reduce printing costs
Automate internal processes
Conduct surveys and market studies online
Business uses of the Internet
Intranets explained
The intranet is a secure, private network that operates within the confines of a single organization, facilitating internal communication, data sharing, and operational coordination. Using internet protocols, it essentially functions as an organization's internal internet, restricted to employees and authorized users. As a robust and sophisticated system, an intranet provides a centralized platform to access resources, collaborate on projects, and share information, making it an indispensable tool for effective and efficient business operations. It enhances productivity, fosters team cohesion, and simplifies information management, while simultaneously safeguarding the organization's sensitive data from external threats.
An intranet is a private TCP/IP-based network of computers on an organization's secure local area network (LAN). An intranet typically contains confidential and sensitive company documents. Each intranet is custom-designed to meet an organization's needs. As such, only an organization's employees have access to it. The employees access the intranet using the same Web browser they use to access the Internet (for example, Firefox or Microsoft's Internet Explorer).
Extranets explained
An extranet is a private network that allows authorized third parties, such as suppliers, vendors, partners, or customers, to access certain information or operations of a company. Extranets are typically extensions of an organization's intranet, and they can be used to improve communication, collaboration, and efficiency between a company and its partners.
Here are some examples of how extranets can be used:
Customer relationship management (CRM): Extranets can be used to provide customers with access to information about their accounts, orders, and shipping status.
Supply chain management (SCM): Extranets can be used to streamline the process of ordering and delivering goods and services between a company and its suppliers.
Project management: Extranets can be used to share information and collaborate on projects with partners or customers.
Extranets can offer a number of benefits for businesses, including:
Improved communication: Extranets can help to improve communication between a company and its partners by providing a secure and convenient way to share information.
Increased collaboration: Extranets can help to increase collaboration between a company and its partners by providing a platform for working together on projects.
Enhanced efficiency: Extranets can help to enhance efficiency by streamlining processes and reducing the need for manual data entry.
If you are considering using an extranet, there are a few factors you should keep in mind:
Security: Extranets should be secure to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access.
Scalability: Extranets should be scalable to accommodate the needs of a growing business.
Cost: Extranets can be a cost-effective way to improve communication, collaboration, and efficiency.
An extranet is a special portion of an intranet to which only authorized users may send and receive information or conduct transactions.
Think of an extranet as an intranet that allows a company's clients to access it. Extranets can be completely outside a company's network or they can be attached through secure measures. The following series of images show examples of how businesses might use intranets and extranets.
1) Businesses often use Intranets to reduce training costs. For example, posting an employee manual on the company intranet is an efficient way to distribute information to the entire company.
2) Intranets can improve communication within a company. For example, online newsletters can telegraph information to the entire company.
3) Businesses also use intranets to increase a sense of community among employees. For example, discussion areas allow employees to find other employees with similar interests.
4) Businesses use extranets to give certain people acccess to company information. For example, extranets provide sales people in the field dial-up access to information they need, such as product, sales, or customer information.
5) Extranets provide a means for businesses to collaborate with other companies. For example, a video post-production company in Los Angeles could post daily movie edits that a production company in Los Angeles could post daily movie edits that a production company across town could access.
6) Businesses use extranets to communicate efficiently and effectively with distributors. For example, distributors can dial into the extranet to check inventories.
Intranet: A private TCP/IP internetwork within an organization that uses Internet technologies such as Web servers and Web browsers for sharing information and collaborating. Intranets can be used to publish company policies and newsletters, provide sales and marketing staff with product information, provide technical support and tutorials, and just about anything else you can think of that fits within the standard Web server/Web browser environment. Intranet Web servers differ from public Web servers in that the public must have the proper permissions and passwords to access the intranet of an organization. Intranets are designed to permit users who have access privileges to the internal LAN of the organization. Within an intranet, Web servers are installed in the network. Browser technology is used as the common front end to access information on servers such as financial, graphical, or text-based data.
Extranet: Extranets refer to applications and services that are Intranet based, and use extended, secure access to external users or enterprises. This access is usually accomplished through passwords, user IDs, and other applicationlevel security. An extranet is the extension of two or more intranet strategies with a secure interaction between participant enterprises and their respective intranets. Part of a Company's Intranet that is extended to users outside the company. In its simplest form, a private TCP/IP network that securely shares information using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and other Internet protocols with business partners such as vendors, suppliers, and wholesale customers. An extranet is thus a corporate intranet that is exposed over the Internet to certain specific groups that need access to it. Extranets built in this fashion follow the client/server paradigm, with Web servers such as Apache. Extranets are a powerful tool because they let businesses share resources on their own private networks over the Internet with suppliers, vendors, business partners, or customers. Extranets are typically used for supporting realtime supply chains, for enabling business partners to work together, or to share information such as catalogs with customers. The power of the extranet is that it leverages the existing technology of the Internet to increase the power, flexibility, and competitiveness of businesses utilizing well-known and easily used tools such as Web servers and Web browsers. Extranets also save companies money by allowing them to establish business-tobusiness connectivity over the Internet instead of using expensive, dedicated leased lines. Extranets can also save money by reducing phone and fax costs.
In the next lesson, you will learn how businesses use other types of networks.
