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Architecture of Intranet

Competitive pressures lead to an intense challenge for companies to improve their business while reducing the strain on corporate information systems. Intranets take on increasing importance as well as new role in the development, deployment, and management of application and resources. 

Intranet applications rest on several layers of infrastructure. Layered architecture allows companies to combine applications, tools, and databases in a coordinated approach. The layered approach also allows companies to offer application enhancements at each layer.

Information systems managers and developers today often have to manage incompatible systems, brought in at various times to do very different tasks. Data formats usually differ, and the connectivity issues involved are inherently complex. 

Achieving a high level of integration requires the capabilities of multiple software products to communicate and cooperate in data exchange and process hand-offs. These demands require Intranets to go beyond their traditional "lowest common denominator" role of electronic mail to more complex functions such as: 
i) Simplify access to the multiple databases, applications, platforms, and objects common in today's organizations.
 
ii) Integrate existing systems easily with new technology as it emerges.
 
iii) Improve the scalability, performance, and reliability of today's client/ server applications.
 
iv) Provide the flexibility to partition applications between different computers and platforms.
 
v) Simplify administration of the distributed environment by supporting proprietary as well as industry standard management solutions.

Intranet interface adds value to the customer interchange by automating the process of qualifying leads from an external Web home page. Used in conjunction with other applications, the Intranet enables the integration of the Web as an interactive marketing forum to become an input to the sales and marketing processes within the company. 

Intranets enable access to the central database, thereby providing salespeople and direct marketers with information to improve the quality of the contact, whether it is by mail, by telephone, or in person. Many financial services firms use the Web to handle account inquiries. While responding to a customer's request or query, the system updates the customer's profile information and attempts to cross-sell other financial products. 

Below are the lists of requirements that are being met with Intranet-based applications. 
i) Provide individualized lead and contact management through automati- cally updated to-do lists, ticklers, and follow-up lists.

ii) Drive leads to closure while tracking all the decision makers, even if they are distributed over multiple sites.
 
iii) Automatically escalate action requests and notify appropriate people when deal status changes.
 
iv) Generate forecasts, including product, territory, regional, national, and worldwide reports.
 
v) Generate lost business reports to support analysis of product/market needs.

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