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Many companies are finding that implementing an intranet - the application of Internet technology to internal information systems - is proving an excellent springboard into establishing a presence on the Internet. While the business objectives of each taken alone are often quite different, integrating intranet and Internet strategies can bring benefits beyond those taken by treating them as separate issues.

Almost half the Australian organisations polled by IT research company IDC for a recent intranet survey say one of their motivations for installing an intranet is to provide information externally for clients, and a similar number indicate that internal Web server applications will be connected to the internet.

Michael Ossipoff, marketing director at Lotus Corporation, says the best return on investment in implementing collaborative systems comes from making communication with customers and constituents absolutely co-ordinated with internal business processes. "An integrated approach delivers much better value," affirms Ossipoff.

Intranets allow staff to use Web browsers as a common interface to information in the company. This is often touted as one of the advantages of intranets, as it means staff need to learn only one interface to be able to access all internal information, rather than having to learn and work through a variety of different systems.

Whether a company's Internet presence is simply for advertising and providing product information, or encompasses electronic commerce, having staff use a Web browser in their daily work means they see the same interface to information and company systems as their clients do. This contributes to deeper understanding of client issues and improved customer service, as well as making employees familiar with Internet concepts.

Market information company Dun & Bradstreet has recently taken an integrated approach to implementing intranet and an extranet, which allows its clients to access its information products and services over the Internet. "We want the whole organisation to be able to support our clients," says Dun & Bradstreet vice president John Lloyd. Having a common interface available to all its staff as well as its clients means that effective support no longer needs to be confined to a few nominated 'customer service' representatives.

In the case of a company which has facilities for ordering products on-line, orders entered by clients will often flow into a chain of order processing, which could include shipping, warehousing, invoicing and other departmental functions. Since one of the valuable applications of intranet-style applications is automating work flow, linking the customer order interface to an internal order processing system can result in substantial improvements in efficiency.

Freight company Federal Express has taken this a step further by allowing clients to track on the Internet the progress of their shipments. Giving clients on-line access to selected account information can be a very valuable service, only possible by integrating internal systems and Internet access.

Jeff Warren of Intranet Australia notes that the two issues that often differentiate intranet and internet applications are the business objectives, and ownership of content. In a typical intranet implementation the business drivers are enhanced internal communication and productivity, and the ownership of information is distributed across many different departments. Internet presence, in contrast, is usually driven by improving customer service and satisfaction, and is controlled by just one centre, often sales or marketing.

Warren suggests that developing an externally-focused intranet application, and giving access incrementally to customers or suppliers is a good approach to building an internet presence. "Web-enabling the customer service department, for example, maturing the application, then opening it up to clients is an excellent strategy," say Warren.

Linking Internet and intranet can require changes to other internal systems, resulting in both challenges and additional benefits. "The most important issues were back end integration and security at the front end," reports Dun & Bradstreet 's Lloyd of their concurrent implementation of intranet and an extranet.

Dun & Bradstreet holds much of its database of business information in its mainframe, so it built middleware to provide links to the data. Integrating this into their intranet and extranet gave access to the information both internally and externally. "For the first time we have been able to provide the same access to information for our own people as clients get," says Lloyd.

Not surprisingly, security is one of the key concerns of IT managers implementing intranet and internet together. Solid firewalls are an essential element in successfully integrating internal and external systems. As security systems improve, this is likely to become less of a barrier to providing limited external access to systems.

Over time, the borders between Internet and intranets may gradually dissolve. Research firm Gartner Group predicts that as the two technologies evolve to deal with issues such as security, openness, and reliability, they will converge around cooperating architectures to form a worldwide marketplace by the year 2000.

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