Communication the name of the game with intranets

It's no longer just the Internet out there.

Now intranets and extranets are rapidly becoming regular features of day-to-day business operations.

An intranet, according to the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia on Techweb.com, is "an in-house Web site that serves the employees of the enterprise."

It is an internal Internet, not accessible to the general public or to customers.

Sometimes intranets are linked to the Internet, but they remain private.

The CDE defines an extranet as "a Web site for existing customers rather than the general public. It can provide access to paid research, current inventories and internal databases, virtually any information that is private and not published for everyone."

In reality, the definitions are blurred. What one company refers to as an extranet may be called a client intranet by different one.

"An intranet is really whatever you want it to be. It's in constant evolution," said Greg Clift, president of PC Net Inc.

The intranet can serve as a central, paperless resource for information on company policies and procedures.

"We have had an intranet for probably five years," said Nancy Cribbs, general manager of Integrated Solutions Group in Springfield.

"It is constantly changing with different things we want to have on it, such as employee manuals, policy manuals, vacation information, cafeteria information, training information and employee procedures," she added.

Cribbs said the intranet is easy to update, everyone can see the information and there is 24-hour access.

Besides policies and procedures, businesses might have an intranet to allow people in different locations to work as a team on projects sharing files and instantly communicating changes; to keep management in the know and on track; and to give sales representatives instant updates on products.

The potential is tremendous, Bob St. John, director of new business development at Serenity Systems International in Lewisville, Texas, said.

"An intranet is much more effective than paper, because it not only provides information, it can be integrated into the company's database, providing up-to-the minute information on inventory levels, pricing, status of shipments to customers and so forth.

"As someone takes an order, all the bookkeeping and inventory entries take place immediately, perhaps even triggering a reorder of a stock item," St. John added.

Communication is the key word; it's what an intranet is all about.

"Our intranet is one more communications medium for us to better serve our customers," said Brian Williams, senior vice president at The Bank.

"We couldn't live without it," he added. "We're still not using it to its maximum capacity."

Now preparing to open The Bank's third location, "One of the things we've talked about doing is training through the intranet," Williams said.