Extranets in Action

Let's talk a little bit more about the why of extranets - what's the point in spending even more money on yet another computer system for your enterprise, especially when so many companies are hurting financially these days? We'll also talk about a few of the ways in which businesses are applying extranet systems in order to address ongoing business needs.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that the unpredictable economy and raucous business climate in recent years has forced many companies to tighten their belts. With these kinds of desperate cost-cutting measures in place at thousands of companies world-wide, it's a wonder that more managers haven't aggressively pursued the adoption of extranet systems to improve the financial health of their operations. The potential benefits of an enterprise extranet include, but certainly aren't limited to:

• Universal Access - As rapidly emerging technologies greatly expand both the manner and locations from which users are able to access the Internet, the opportunities to seize real-time competitive advantage becomes paramount. By embracing well-accepted Internet standards, extranets allow your enterprise to offer access to timely and accurate information to your partners whether via tablet PC, PDA, cell phone, or other nascent technologies.

• Open Architecture - As your extranet moves to replace many of your legacy systems - including your publications library, human resources systems, help desk, and other EDI systems - the open architecture inherent in the standards found in Internet technologies will provide virtually limitless flexibility and adaptability as you seek to expand the utility of your extranet beyond its initial design.

• The Almost Paperless Enterprise - While the myth of the "paperless office" has yet to be realized in any serious fashion, a tremendous intermediate step can be realized by moving forms, catalogs, and other traditional paper documents online, whether as web-based interactive forms or as PDF files. Printing of the vast majority of these documents instantaneously shifts to an on-demand basis, while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of workers (by reducing time spent searching for documents) and decreasing printing and distribution costs for paper assets.

• Unified Interface - As your organization works to provide enterprise-wide access to formerly segmented applications and services from individual business units, a single web-based interface will serve to increase overall user-efficiency across a wider range of extranet tasks. This will also reduce training costs by eliminating the need to cross-train users on a number of disparate systems - allowing, for example, all enterprise inventory management duties (or supply requisitions, order processing, etc.) to be handled by one master system rather than a collection of systems with disjointed interface and data requirements, etc.

• Self-Service - Empowering your business partners to solve their own problems allows your organization to spend more time worrying about more strategic matters. By implementing smart editorial controls on your extranet, you can ensure that up-to-date, critical business information - everything from logistics information to FAQs and help-desk services - is available via no more than a click or two to those in your supply chain, freeing up your human resources to focus elsewhere.

• Enhanced Communication & Collaboration - The extranet also provides a single-source solution for distributing information (new product specs, proposals, etc.), facilitating discussion, and then rapidly and accurately channeling feedback from partners and other stakeholders back to the relevant users involved (project managers, marketers, sales teams, etc.)

You will probably notice that these benefits are very similar to those of the intranet, and again the reason for this is that the two are essentially very similar. The main difference is that the extranet is bringing these benefits to your clients or strategic partners in their work with your organization.