Intranet and Portal Development
Since knowledge is the biggest asset a company can have, it is imperative that relevant knowledge be shared throughout the organization.
How can Intranets save you time?
People working together run most organizations. How do your employees communicate? By phone, voice mail, e-mail, fax or by person to person meetings?
An Intranet can cut down the time your employees spend on routine communication tasks. If you are using e-mail internally you already know the benefits over trying to get someone over the
phone. The one problem with using e-mail is that the entire message is usually not conveyed in the first communication. One e-mail usually starts a string of e-mails back and forth until the
other part completely understands your request or message. Instead consider putting forms on your Intranet. Design forms for frequently requested tasks within your organization. For ex.
Request for PC repair, stationary reorder from supply room, telephone messages. Have your users fill out the form and you can make sure using data validation, they have entered the required
information. This will provide the recipient with an e-mail that is complete with all the required information and save a lot of time.
How much time do your employees spend answering routinely asked questions? Want to cut down the time? Put the information on an Intranet. Don't just put it out there; refer all your callers
to your Intranet. For example, before your travel office answers the phone, play a short recorded message saying "For routine questions check our pages on the company Intranet at www...."
Do your employees spend time chasing paper? Trying to hunt down paper forms, reports, documents, microfilm? Consider converting these documents to electronic formats using scanners, OCR
software or other means. Provide a search interface to these documents using your Intranet. Once users know how easily accessible these documents are over the Intranet, they will prefer the
faster solution. Result?
That's just for starters. Consider making your Intranet your only point of entry and sign on for all your business applications. Build on your Intranet and add custom applications such as
a contact directory, forum, knowledge base, help desk and more.
Turn your intranet into a portal and make it a gateway to how your company uses the Internet. Keep track of competitors, industry news, provide people with common internet links, again
empowering your workforce and saving them time.
How long does it take your IT staff to update every PC in your workplace? There are no implementation or software distribution issues with an Intranet. As long as your employees have a web
browser that's all they need.
Most importantly with today's dynamic technology your employees can maintain the portal themselves, and you don't have to purchase expensive software.
If you have a Windows NT/2000 or 2003 Server you also already have all the hardware you need, and require no additional software that needs to be purchased.
Intranets can vastly improve a companies productivity which will lead to impressive returns on investment.
They give 24-hour access to global information.
This allows companies to empower their employees by giving them access to all the information they need to act decisively and quickly to respond to the customer's needs.
Fewer meetings, less travel, reduced long distance costs, and publishing information on line, will increase ROI by saving companies hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
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