This paper provides a brief discussion of the differences and interrelationships between Internets, Intranets, and the Workflow Layer, within the context of practical utilization for businesses. It briefly examines how the three components can be applied together to positively impact a business' operations.
The Internet and its methods of conducting business offer tremendous opportunities for a business to expand how and where business takes place. Specifically, making information available to customers via electronic delivery, at all times of the day, and at reasonable costs opens a large new avenue of business delivery.
Investment in Internet technologies can be as small or as large as desired, and readily scaled to the needs to the business. For many businesses, the Internet offers opportunities to:
Along with the Internet are the Intranets, which are distinguished from the Internet by their exclusive domain. Intranets employ the same technologies as the Internet, and may have all the appearances of the Internet. However, Intranets are limited in scope (as distinct from size), and service a bounded membership. For example, if a business were to implement an internal e-mail communications capability using Internet technologies, but reserve access only to its employees (and other authorized users), such a network would be termed an Intranet.
It is important to understand the distinct differences between Internets and Intranets, because both have the potential to benefit a business in complimentary, yet different manners. We are all generally aware of the Internet, which is a "public domain" network, accessible to all interested users. Intranets, conversely, are "private domain" networks, with restricted memberships. At this point, the distinction between the two is clear.
However, to blur the distinction, Intranets can reside on Internets. This is accomplished by allowing "private domain" information to move point-to-point over the "public domain" network. The private domain data is routed via precise addressing schemes to its destination, and is generally encrypted so as to maintain its content privacy. In this manner, a business can take advantage of the extensive Internet infrastructure, yet minimize the investment in the underlying technologies.
Internet data can be imported into Intranets, and vice-versa, generally through "portals" to the Intranet, with the appropriate security controls. For example, an employee on the West Coast can access an East Coast Home Office data store (containing, for example, employee name and addresses) by entering a designated "portal", and having correct password/ID's. In the same manner, the West Coast employee can access the information from their home computer, again with the correct password/ID. The opportunities to apply such capabilities are extensive, and generally limited by factors such as access restrictions, security, and convenience.
For most organizations, the Internet can be a vehicle of communication. The advantage is its ready accessibility by most jurisdictions within the United States and its territories (in fact, in most developed nations), via Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The disadvantage is that by using an ISP, some form of dial-up communication link must take place, a connection established, and then data transferred. Users are at the whim of the ISP and the ISP's communications connections. However, it is a convenient structure, and used by millions of Internet users daily. Over time, we can anticipate that this technology will improve dramatically.
A strong enabler for making the Internet widely used is the Internet browser technology, which minimizes the setup and maintenance complexity that has characterized traditional systems. Specifically, Internet browser technology forms an enabling layer, upon which applications then reside. Client machines only require standard browsers and communication software that is typically installed with the operating system. Thus, as the underlying browser technology changes and is updated, the impact on the applications will be minimal (assuming that the applications are "independent" of the browser technology). We can anticipate that the browser, the Internet enabling software, will continue to improve dramatically in future years.
In the current electronic commerce environment, business demands are pushing functionality further toward the end-customers (e.g.: loan applications, insurance quotes, and so forth) rapidly. Businesses are now responsible for recording (generally using a human intermediary) much of the information necessary to make determinations in providing quotes, or responding to applications. The Internet provides a tool by which that data can be provided directly by the 'consumer', transmitted electronically, and then processed with a minimum of manual intervention.
The Internet offers a means by which low-volume customers can communicate electronically with a home office, or business operations center at a low cost using ISPs. Larger volume customers, if they have dedicated links to home office or a business operations center, would be more appropriately deemed part of an Intranet. The challenge for most businesses is in using the Internet to their best competitive business advantage.
A wide range of tools are available for the Internet, enabling remote unattended locations to be established (such as kiosks). Users can browse information at their convenience and address questions to company representatives. Such messages can be automatically routed to a local office or a business operations center. If users browse the company's web site but no message is sent, their information (e-mail address) can be recorded using an address-identification tool, which operates much like a caller ID capability.
In fact, many companies now utilize sophisticated auditing tools to track and record a visitors "travels" through their web site. One well known mail-order company with a sizeable Internet web presence, for example, tracks which web site locations a customer visits and the items they select; this builds a comprehensive customer interest/purchasing profile that subsequently allows tailoring of automated product announcements to be created and broadcast to the customer.
Overall, the Internet technology as implemented today will undergo rapid transformation in the next few years: it will become faster, and with greater levels of capability. At the same time, electronic commerce will accelerate and expand the opportunities available to reach and communicate with customers.
Intranets operate in a "private domain", supporting the requirements of a bounded business group, and operate almost identically to the Internet. In an Intranet, individuals in the enterprise communicate with each other using the e-mail communication tools. Data stores are readily available, using the same accession tools as available for the Internet. In fact, all parts of the business can have their own "web site". In addition, users can readily send and receive messages to other users on the "public" Internet. Boundaries on an Intranet are potentially limitless, both for numbers of users and geographic scope.
The principal ingredient for an Intranet is exclusivity. Membership is restricted to the sponsoring business, and can be expanded or contracted at will. Beyond that, differences can be very vague. In fact, a business can hire an ISP to manage its Intranet, further blurring the boundaries between the two avenues.
An Intranet makes practical sense in a distributed workforce environment, where communications between all members is facilitated by a common, architecturally unified environment. A large advantage is its inherent flexibility, which allows for the rapid set-up or disassembly of new sites, with a minimum of logistical complexity. The primary enabling ingredient is communications network availability.
Although the Internet has been a rapid enabler of electronic communications, it is not inherently a workflow management tool. This is where most businesses discover the limitations of the Internet, since the ability to structure "mail" into appropriate "bins", such as new, sent, awaiting signature, and so forth is not part of the browser technologies.
For a business to manage electronic commerce effectively, some work management tool is necessary. And if that tool operates both in the Internet and Intranet environments, and is an effective desktop management device, then a singular desktop workstation can have access to multiple business "threads". A number of software tools are available in the marketplace today.
Some of these products provide a full suite of desktop management tools for sorting and "binning" electronic messages, including a fully "web-enabled" application product with a browser embedded in its functionality. Thus, these products operate fully within an office workflow-based environment, as well as send and receive e-mail messages. In addition, because of their web-browser capabilities, they can access most web sites available on the Internet. The flexibility offered by these products brings together a wide diversity of electronic capabilities that promotes a seamless business communications environment.
To ensure that electronic communications integrates smoothly into the business operations environment, some work management capability will be necessary. Although the Internet and Intranets offer tremendous opportunities, there must be a way to manage and maintain order in the "mail" that will result. To this end, workflow management will be an important ingredient of Internet capabilities in the future.