Like the Internet itself, intranets are used to share information. Secure intranets are now the fastest growing segment of the Internet because they are much less expensive to build and manage than private networks (LANs/WANs).
Installing an intranet should cut costs down for producing, accessing and distributing information within an enterprise, as well as making employees more flexible and efficient. Feedback will be faster within the organisation which means that work shall get done much quicker and with better efficiency.
As well as using intranets, some organisations find using extranets even more efficient. An extranet is an intranet that gives limited access to people outside the intranet/organisation. You can access an extranet only if you have a valid username and password, and your identity determines which parts of the extranet you can view.
Extranets are becoming a very popular means for business partners to exchange information. For example Ford has an extranet with their suppliers, which allows the suppliers to gain access to the intranet to see what Ford requires. This makes the communication between the two companies much more efficient.
A very useful application which is used world wide in organisations and businesses every day is IBM Lotus Domino and Notes. The Domino server and the Notes client combine expertise messaging, calendaring, and scheduling capabilities with a robust platform for collaborative applications. Lotus messaging gives you flexibility to meet the needs of all your workers from those without a dedicated workstation to the remote or mobile employee to the office based knowledge worker.
For good efficient communication within a large organisation, it is vital in my opinion to use Lotus Domino/Notes, especially when used within a LAN/WAN, and/or an intranet/extranet, as it makes knowledge sharing very easy and effective.
Another new ICT is Video conferencing. Video conferencing is a fairly new big concept for businesses, because it allows ‘one to many communication’, and also like the telephone is ‘real time’ communication. This means businesses can now hold business meetings without even leaving their premises! In addition to supporting conversations, video conferencing may also be used by providing a view of activities at a remote location. For example, a board of directors may want to see who is doing what in the work place.
Setting up a video conference system can be fairly costly, but normally within a big organisation there is a LAN/WAN and therefore, all that is essentially required is the relevant software and hardware (web cams with microphones etc.) and an H320 (ISDN) connection line.
Although, there is no point in having video conferencing facilities if your business contacts do not also have them, unless the intended use is for just within the business organisation. For example a global business that has headquarters in more than one country, could find using video conferencing extremely useful and cost effective, because it would save personnel having to travel back and forth from different countries just to go to meetings. Managers would be able to have meetings face to face with their superiors in different countries, yet without physically being in the same room. In this example a video conferencing system would be of great benefit to an organisation, because eventually the system would pay for itself (the cost of employees travelling on aeroplanes and staying in hotels is not cheap). Furthermore, because of the time it would save not having to travel to meetings, it would mean the saved time can be used to do more work (make more money!) Hence you can see there is great potential for an organisation to use video conferencing, even if it is simply to improve efficiency!)
A similar sort of chat system is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Software and hardware solutions now exist to give high quality voice transport over IP networks, such as the Internet and intranets. This could allow your company to make enormous savings on telecom costs, by sending voice traffic anywhere around the world via your Internet connection, or across your own private network. This would be mainly attractive to companies with offices distributed around the globe, particularly those with an existing network in place.
Just like video conferencing, VoIP is extremely useful, as it is very efficient and cost effective.
The newest ICT that is currently being implemented into IS is wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi). Wi-Fi is the wireless way to handle networking. It is also known as 802.11 networking and wireless networking. The big advantage of Wi-Fi is its simplicity. You can connect computers anywhere in your home or office without the need for wires. The computers connect to the network using radio signals, and computers can be up to 150 meters or so apart.
For a small business or a certain department of a large organisation this is a very effective way of networking. It will save time and money on not having to have network cables (CAT5) installed in your building/office. Using Wi-Fi can also make employees more mobile within the business building. For example, if using a laptop, an Ethernet card (Wi-Fi card) can simply be plugged into it and the employee can roam around the office building whilst being connected to the network!
Whilst change is normally a good thing, you must always consider your employees. To begin with, depending on what the change is exactly, whether for example it is a new network being implemented or a new software being used, you must think about the costs evolved in training your employees (assuming it is needed), and also just as importantly, how your employees will react to the change.
For example, let’s say an intranet is going to be implemented within an organisation. How will the employees react? Some may be resistant to change because the old system worked fine. If this is the case, you must explain clearly why the new intranet is being implemented and what the benefits will be, (this should be done anyway!)
The way in which you will train your employees is also important. How will you do it? During work hours? In lunch times? After work? Can certain people within the organisation train the employees, or will a training company need to be outsourced? If so what will the costs be? All these factors must be considered, especially if working to a tight budget and outsourcing is need for training.
Training can be the success or failure of a new system; if the employees do not know how to use the new system properly and efficiently, it will therefore be a failure, meaning time and money would have been wasted.
As well as advantages ICT and IS can have their disadvantages, for example when installing a Domino server/LAN, despite the advantages they can possess, they can also give employees the opportunity to stray away from working efficiently. For example, with the messaging facilities the employees could exploit it by simply sending messages to each other rather than doing their work. Again having Internet facilities means the same thing, employees can browse the net rather than doing their work. There are measures to fight against this, but they are not very efficient.
As you can see, technology in the past few years has rocketed, and now ICT and IS are extremely fundamental to businesses and organisations, without the use of them everything even down to the simplest of things such as communication will be affected.
Bibliography
-
Rowe, Christopher and Thompson, Jane, People and Chips, ‘The Human Implications of Information Technology’. McGraw Hill, 3rd Edition 1996
- Bocij Paul, Chaffey Dave, Greasley Andres and Hickie Simon, ‘Business Information Systems – Technology Development and Management for E-Business’. FT Prentice Hall 2002.
- Langford, Duncan, ‘Practical Computer Ethics’. McGraw Hill 1995
