This is where a VAR's experience with corporate networks can be invaluable. Activities like establishing a network baseline and executing capacity planning are critical to intranet success. The fifth skill involves the corporate culture . The large number of stale sites cluttering up the Web today should be a warning against implementing an intranet for its own sake. Innovative VARs can team-use a number of techniques to ensure success.
Executive seminars focusing on business advantages rather than technology can often help.
Organizational facilitators can help users conceive their own intranet applications. Good project management will ensure that users buy into the intranet concept, participate in its design and own the applications. Experienced VARs who invest in mastering intranets will find tremendous opportunities. VARs unwilling or slow to make that investment will find their MIS customers turning to a new breed of Web-savvy competitors. Matthew Peterson is president of Scenic Wonders in Madison, WI, which provides visual products and services for information highways.