In each topic area, researchers can find articles, news, bibliographies, and references to relevant Web sites. They also can add information, so the process of collecting and disseminating information is distributed. Before the Web, there was no central repository of information, so researchers often spent time looking for information that was already available in-house. For example, they can bring up problems with commonly used software tools and discuss possible solutions. For example, if a problem has already been solved by one employee, we can find out about it immediately and avoid duplicating efforts.
Researchers are more willing to exchange their experiences and help their colleagues.
Project leaders now instantly have administrative data on their projects at their fingertips such as expenses, man-hours spent, and the status of procurement requests. We are beginning to see an increase in productivity and efficiency of operations. Procurement of Olivetti products for internal use is more efficient because employees can now access the entire product catalog and ordering information on the Web. Originally, this information was stored on the corporate mainframe and was not easily accessible. Olivetti is now starting to develop a fully-automated procurement process, where users can fill in their procurement requests through Netscape Navigator and track the status of their requests.