What is Intranet ?
Intranet is a kind of computer network that shares company information among different individuals using the internet technology. It is primarily used by business organizations for facilitating communication efforts of its employees. In fact during the last few decades, it had been the popular way of communicating more securely.
What is the use of Intranet ?
Other than communication intranet provides different functions such as social networking tools, document repository and custom forms. Intranet is made up of corporate servers which can be accessed with a LAN or a private dial-up medium.
Al though intranet includes many benefits, still there are some facts which makes them less than modern solutions. These modern solutions are more effective and seamless compared to an intranet. Therefore, these distinctive pros and cons needs to be identified so that users can decide whether this solution will be suitable for their business.
In this article, I will be exploring about 10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Intranet | Drawbacks & Benefits of Intranet. Through this post, you will know the pros and cons of using intranet.
Let's get started,
Advantages of Intranet
1. Cost
The expense of communicating information using intranet is extremely low. The whole organizations can use the services of intranet for a very low subscription fee. Additionally there is no cost involved in maintenance, printing and others. This makes intranet highly cost effective.
2. Availability
Using intranet employees can access their information anytime and anywhere. Employees don't have to sit infront of the computer. With the services of the cloud portal informations can be accessed instantly wherever you are in the world. This makes work easier for the employees who are constantly on the travel for their business.
3. Information Exchange
Intranet can be used as a communication hub where employees store information whenever they wanted. Within a fraction of seconds files can be accessed as well as downloaded. Hence, companies can ensure that the information can reach out to every state of the company.
4. Communication
Intranet allows fast and economical way of communication within an organization. That too in both ways (horizontal as well as vertical). Despite of the physical location, intranet can edit, comment and store informations. Both businesses contains the options of chats, groups and emails so that employees are free to express their opinions. It also reduces travel time as employees as employees in the business enterprises can communicate with each other with just a single click.
5. Productivity
Overall the productivity can be seen increased using intranet. It makes all the informations readily available so that workers won't find difficult to search them. Thus, employees can deliver their work more efficiently and accurately. If more time is spend onto finding the required files, it can negatively impact the company productivity. Apart from the workers, managers too can be benefited from the intranet productivity. The manager can spend more time in analyzing information.
6. Web Publishing
One of the most prominent advantages of intranet is that it permits web publishing. Web technologies can be used as a medium to access documents, employee manuals and company policies. All the informations can be simply viewed via a web browser.
7. Social Networking
Intranet can be used to create a social work environment which makes the bond stronger between the employees. Most popular way of social networking is by utilizing social media platforms. By using social media, employees can decide their own personalities and connect with each other. Overall the employee satisfaction as well as job performance can be guaranteed.
8. Time Savings
Employees in a particular organization only requests information depending on their needs. Since selected informations are in small proportion it usually takes less amount of time. Moreover there is no maintenance of physical documents involved here. This can lead more time savings as well.
9. Collaboration
Another benefit of intranet is the level of collaboration it provides. Each staffs in different departments can easily collaborate and share relevant information. This can break the barrier of communication problems between departments and managements. Thus, leading to work together for achieving the same goal.
10. Decision Making
Since staffs of different departments can share ideas and informations, managements will be able to make better decisions. For an effective decision making there should be adequate informations available.
Disadvantages of Intranet
1. Implementation
The cost of implementing intranets are usually high (Depending on the type of intranet solutions and the number of users). Additionally it needs separate training and upgrade for using the intranet solution effectively. All these require time and effort which makes it difficult the implementation process.
2. Complexity
Intranets are considered to be complex in nature. Due to their complexity many employees feel overwhelmed and unwilling to use it. And also intranet users needs to do separate administration which can be time consuming.
3. Security
Al though intranet systems doe contain many security measures, it is still vulnerable to security risks. Unless there are firewalls or gateways, your private informations can be accessed by a third party. Therefore, when using intranet there is a loss of privacy for the corporates.
4. Onboarding
In intranet always the employees should be satisfied at the point of launch. If there are no valued content, staff will not use it anymore. Therefore, content plays an important role here.
5. Updates
An intranet solution that gets frequently updated is less prone to usability issues. But the problem remains in finding one. It can be extremely challenging to find an intranet solution that remains updated. These kinds of intranet systems most at times lack customer support. Hence, employees of the company will have a problem adopting to it.
6. Management
Intranets have an issue in managing themselves. It must be regularly checked and contents needs to be managed throughout. Employees needs to be responsible for managing the software and make sure its functioning regularly. For this they need some special training as well.
7. Work Culture
Intranet needs to have changes in the work culture for their own effectiveness. This can assign more tasks and queries. If they are not allocated on proper proportion, they can get pile up which results the business in chaos.
8. Real time Interactions
Since the work of intranet is done mainly on computers, there are very less number of face-to-face interactions. Lack of real time interactions can lead to restrictions in personal bond between employees and hinder corporations.
9. User Experience
Intranet lacks on the side of user experience in a way that even people are unwilling to use it. It is suppose to facilitate user's works. Employees are still looking for a way that they can use intranet and access their informations.
10. Information Overload
Another challenge faced by an intranet solution is the overhead of information it is storing. Excessive amount of informations on the intranet can be confusing to many. If there are too much of informations apart from the important one the user needs, he/she will most likely to avoid them.
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