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Application of Intranets

Intranets are generally used for four types of applications: 
1) Communication and Collaboration 
i) Send and receive e-mail, faxes, voice mail, and paging.  
ii) Discussion rooms and chat rooms.  
iii) Audio and video conferencing.  
iv) Virtual team meetings and project collaboration.  
v) Online company discussions as events (e.g., IBM Jams).  
vi) In-house blogs.
 
2) Web Publishing: Develop and publish hyperlinked multimedia documents such as:  
i) Policy manuals.  
ii) Company newsletters.  
iii) Product catalogs.  
iv) Technical drawings.  
v) Training material.  
vi) Telephone directories.

3) Business Operations and Management  
i) Order processing.  
ii) Inventory control.  
iii) Production set-up and control.  
iv) Management information systems.  
v) Database access.
 
4) Intranet Portal Management
 
i) Centrally administer all network functions including servers, clients, security, directories, and traffic.  
ii) Give users access to a variety of internal and external business tools/applications.  
iii) Integrate different technologies.  
iv) Conduct regular user research to identify and confirm strategy (random sample surveys, usability testing, focus groups, in-depth interviews with wireframes, etc.)
 
Intranet Application Case Studies 

The cases are organised in the following format: 
1) Background of company,  
2) Business challenges,  
3) Before the intranet technology,  
4) Intranet cost, 
5) Intranet strategy,  
6) After intranet technology,  
7) Subjective (intangible) benefits (optional),  
8) Lessons learned, and  
9) Analysing the ROI.
 
Intranet Cases Studies with Return on Investment (ROI) 
 
1) FedEx-Package Tracking: FedEx has a system linking more than 60 internal websites that were created by and for employees. The integrated intranets allow communication between divisions and corporate headquarters on issues important to employees and customers. The company is continuing to expand the intranet by adding servers in all of its locations so that the 30,000 office employees will be networked.

A unique part of the FedEx intranet is the package tracking system that allows customers to access FedEx's intranets to find the status of a package that they have shipped or one that they are expecting. By allowing customers themselves to find this information, customer service agents are able to concentrate on problem solving rather than answering routine inquiries. The customer cannot access any other part of the intranet, so confidential information is secure. This implementation has been estimated to save FedEx over 100 million annually.
 
FedEx went one step further with its intranet. It cooperated with retailers that ship products directly to customers, by setting up computer systems that place and ship orders. The retailer fills the order and FedEx handles the shipping. Everything is done within the computer system, including inventory control, and FedEx implements and even maintains these systems. Complete efficiencies are gained by this integration, and all parties involved move the entire e-commerce process forward.

2) Moen-Connected ERP: Moen Corporation(North Olmstead, Ohio) launched an Intranet called CinfoNet in 1997. Moen needed to share information quickly and easily, especially with a huge SAP R/3 system that was implemented at that time. The development team was made up of three employees and several consultants. A favourite user application was the product database. Initially, 70 per cent of Moen's 2,500 employees have access to the Intranet. When R/3 was implemented, 100 per cent were on the Intranet. To make CinfoNet a complete success, existing electronic documents were converted to the new system. Share Huge Internal Websites: Silicon
 
3) Silicon Graphics, Inc.- Share Huge Internal Website: Graphics makes high-end graphics workstations. Their Intranet system, called silicon Junction, is accessed by over 7,000 employees. It includes 800 specialised internal websites containing more than 144,000 pages of technical information. There is also access to all corporate databases. Previously this access was not possible. Information that used to take days to access can now be obtained in a few minutes, simply by using links, pointing and clicking.

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