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.
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. 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.