Remember when intranets were going to take over the data lines? Think back to 1996, word was that intranets were going to be a bigger buzz than public internets. That's where the bucks were, that's where the new technology was going to grow the fastest.

Except that someone forgot to tell the public and the mass appeal of the internet grew so quickly that it overshadowed private corporate intranets.

With the success of their public sites, companies are again looking at the advantages of internal corporate websites or intranets. An extranet can be viewed as part of an intranet that is extended to users outside the company. Outside users may include partners, suppliers, customers, or vendors.

Advantages of intranets:

Increased employee productivity Decreased cost of corporate information dispersal Immediate access to production and shipping schedules Online troubleshooting support for field personnel Password protected areas for outside users

Intranets and extranets differ from public internet sites, being more an access to information than a showcase of goods or services. People using intranets may include employees, suppliers, partners, and customers. They are seeking specific information relating to a variety of subjects such as wage and benefit policies, production schedules, and price and availability confirmation.

Users must be able to find information quickly and use the intranet to act on that information. Intranet design must be straightforward with practical technical applications, such as email, bulletin boards and conference areas. Remember, our goal is to streamline productivity and save time.

Which brings us to our first point about intranets:

Point One Establish Design and Navigation Standards For Honeywell-Measurex Devron, Webtide chose a simple and elegant design in the corporate colours. Access to their high quality imagery added attractive visuals that reinforced the corporate culture. The site needed to be accessible for internal personnel to search by department and for world-wide field staff to search schedules by project and manuals by part. Webtide developed two independent navigation structures to accommodate the differing needs of all eleven departments.

The second part to realizing the savings offered by an intranet:

What to include in an intranet.

Essential information structures of a usable, and profitable, intranet: a directory hierarchy a search engine a What's New! section a comprehensive archive

For the content, do your research, consult everyone, create a Requirements Document (just like we did for the ecommerce site) and develop that killer intranet. You can do it and Webtide Internet Solutions can help. We've been there, we know what works and we'll tell you everything!