2. How does the use of the Internet, intranets, and extranets by companies today support their business processes and activities? In order to succeed today, organizations that are competing in global markets are increasing rapidly. The increased use of technologies such as the Internet, intranets, and extranets will definitely revolutionize how businesses will operate and how they will use computers to compete. The Internet and related technologies and applications have changed the ways companies operate their businesses processes and activities.
For example, companies can network their offices and share data to be more effective and efficient. However, excessive use of the Internet, intranets, and extranets also create intense competition daily in the marketplace for companies. Therefore, in order to be a successful company, these technologies alongside with computers will transform their roles in the business world to lead to a more effective and powerful standing company. Enterprise collaboration systems involve the use of software tools to support communication, coordination, and collaboration among the members of networked teams and workgroups.
A company may use intranets, the Internet, extranets, and other networks to implement such systems. For example, employees and external consultants may form a virtual team that uses a corporate intranet and the Internet for e-mail, videoconferencing, electronic discussion groups, and Web pages of work-in-progress information to collaborate on business projects. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide.
It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. Through Internet, organization can connect directly with the general public especially with the customers. Opportunities range from giving away basic product information to automatically updating or patching retail software. Many businesses also conduct retail operations online.
An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization’s information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network within an organization. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization’s internal website, but may be a more extensive part of the organization’s information technology infrastructure.
Organizations often use internet technologies to facilitate operations within the organization. Such systems might also include product support knowledge bases, training systems, and access to the organization’s benefits system. An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside, for specific business or educational purposes. An extranet can be viewed as an extension of a company’s intranet that is extended to users outside the company, usually partners, vendors, and suppliers.
It has also been described as a “state of mind” in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with a selected set of other companies (business-to-business, B2B), in isolation from all other Internet users. Organizations may use these same internet technologies to connect with their business partners to facilitate supply chain management, help manage projects, manage accounts, or provide advanced technical support. Organizations use internet technologies to connect with both customers and suppliers. These technologies allow customers to generate and track their own orders as well as manager their accounts.
They also enable significant supply chain automation. The advantages of using extranet are exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), share product catalogs exclusively with trade partners, collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts, jointly develop and use training programs with other companies, and also provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies, such as an online banking application managed by one company on behalf of affiliated banks. Besides, we also can define e-business as the use of Internet technologies to ork and empowering business processes, electronic commerce, and enterprise collaboration within a company and with its customers, suppliers, and other business stakeholders. The Internet and Internet-like networks, like intranets and extranets, have become the primary information technology infrastructure that supports the e-business applications of many companies. These companies rely on e-business applications to reengineer internal business processes, implement electronic commerce systems with their customers and suppliers, and also promote enterprise collaboration among business teams and workgroups.
