Internet vs. Intranet vs. Extranet: What’s the Difference?
2020 caused many organizations to rethink how they do business. Suddenly, digital transformation was a top priority — as remote work and rapid innovation became the new norm.
Organizations had to maintain business-as-usual in a very unusual climate. Also and part of that meant evaluating their tools and technologies to ensure they were built to support a virtual work environment. One where security, productivity, communication, and collaboration would not be compromised.
The company intranet was one tool that quickly went from a nice-to-have to a necessity. So For many organizations, it became THE mission-critical tool for business continuity, crisis communications, remote work, and more. Unfortunately, for some organizations, however, 2020 shone a light on what their intranet couldn’t do, and left them wanting more.
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What’s the difference between an intranet and the Internet?
Before we dive into the uses and benefits of a 2021-ready intranet solution, let’s take a step back and define the term “intranet” to some other technologies it’s often confused with.
Let’s consider these simple definitions:
- The Internet is a globally-connected network of computers that enables people to share information and communicate with each other.
- An intranet, on the other hand, is a local or restricted network that enables people to store, organize, and share information within an organization.
Besides the spelling and pronunciation (which might sound forced and awkward at times), there are key differences between the two, one of the most important beings that an intranet is a platform that can be bought and sold (or built, in some cases), while the Internet is the underlying technology that enables its connectivity.
What is an extranet?
There’s one more type of ‘net’ to consider, and it relates to enterprise collaboration with external users:
- An extranet is a web portal that is accessible by an organization and its external vendors, partners, customers, or any other users that require access to restricted information.
With an extranet, the host organization manages the site administration and content and provides controlled access to internal and external members. Also some example use cases for an extranet include a partner or vendor portal, a customer community, or a franchise network.
3 benefits of a next-gen intranet and organizations
In the past, intranets have gotten a bad wrap. Many thought of them as out-of-date, disorganized file structures that could only be managed by IT.
More recently, however, next-gen intranet technology has emerged. With more flexibility, capabilities, and user-friendly features, the intranet has become a core tool for communication, collaboration, knowledge management, and culture and engagement.
More specifically, the intranet can solve real business challenges that often slow organizations down. So let’s take a look at three areas where an intranet help save critical time, money, and resources.
1. Create a single source of truth for organizations
An intranet gives organizations one place to securely share and store business-critical information. Also, Employees always know where to look and can be confident they’re receiving the latest information.
2. Increase productivity and collaboration
Using email and apps to manage work can be inefficient, time-consuming, and even risky. So An intranet can help streamline workflows and cut out the clutter so more work can get done.
3. Connect and engage a remote workforce
The intranet has become a virtual workplace for a distributed workforce. Activities that can no longer take place in person are happening online and an intranet makes this translation easy and seamless, helping to connect remote workers who would otherwise be difficult to engage.
Also These examples just scratch the surface of how a company can use an intranet to its advantage. Partners Healthcare is one example of an organization that used its intranet as the go-to tool for managing communications and bringing its organization together during the COVID-19 crisis.
Vice President of Communications, Rich Copp said: “We had to get our arms around communications without hesitation. So our entire network of 78,000 needed one source of truth.”
How to choose an intranet software for your business
Choosing an intranet solution should be largely about finding a partner that you feel will provide you with the guidance and support to create a digital workplace that engages and inspires your people across the organization. But when it comes down to brass tacks, there are certain core features you must be able to check off your list when choosing a new solution.
Before you start that list, identify the needs of each of your stakeholder groups and organizations:
- End-users: these are the people who supposed to use your intranet every day to manage their work. In this sense, we mean employees or members.
- Content creators: these are the people who use your intranet as a tool for publishing content and communications.
- Administrators: these are the people who are involved in deploying, building, and maintaining your intranet solution.
All of these groups are essential to the success of an intranet that is truly mean to engage and inform. So Failing to address the needs of any one of them when evaluating solutions will inevitably cause friction once you get to the implementation stage.
Now, let’s break down which specific features will help get buy-in from each of these groups.
Features for end-users and organizations
You need features that help users be more productive — saving them time, effort, and resources — by having everything available in one place. So not only do you want them to be more productive, but you also want them to involve and engage with what’s happening around them.
Your intranet platform should help them do four key things: consume content, find information, interact with each other, and manage their work.
Features like:
- Notifications: Keep employees up to date with real-time notifications about new posts or content.
- Subscriptions: Receive instant, daily, weekly, or monthly notifications for followed content, as set by the user or administrator.
- Social features: Use blogs, polls, comments, and likes to build culture and create a dialogue between employees across your organization.
- Search: Quickly find anything in your intranet (or via integrations to third-party repositories), from files to articles to subject matter experts.
- Profiles: Find which colleague has the expertise you need by viewing their profile or starting a chat.
- Microblogs: Connect employees with their coworkers — near and far — by creating a virtual water cooler to share a quick note or direct them to important updates.
- Tasks: Make project management easy by keeping track of all your to-do’s, reminders, and requests.
Features for content creators
These are your digital workplace managers, intranet managers, communicators — or anyone else who regularly posts content on the intranet. As the “super users” of the platform, they’ll need access to a wide range of features that allow them to create, publish, distribute, and manage content — simply and seamlessly.
Features like:
- Multiple content types: Choose from different channels for publishing content, including blogs, wikis, calendars, and forums.
- WYSIWYG editor: Post content with the ability to format text, add images, embed videos, and switch to HTML code.
- Translation: Enable content creators to draft, review and display content in multiple languages for end-users around the world.
- Moderation: Review and approve content and comments before they publish.
- Broadcasts: Call attention to important information by broadcasting messages to the entire organization or individual groups.
- Drafts: Save content as a draft so you can come back to it later and collaborate with other authors.
- Future publishes: Schedule content to publish at a future date and time so you can load it when it works best for you.
- Labels: Make it easy to manage and find content by categorizing items by type, topic, department, or your organizational labels.
- Read tracking: Enable users to acknowledge that they’ve read and understood a piece of content.
