In the era of digital transformation, the volumes of information have expanded considerably and the traditional boundaries between data, information and archival documents have blurred.

Modern organisations must be able to carry out their functions in the digital space, including communication, collaboration, document management, knowledge management and employee loyalty. All these dimensions have a profound impact on the productivity, innovation capacity and competitiveness of the company, regardless of its size.

The corporate Intranet/Extranet is an example of a tool capable of bringing together the company’s information management channels and applications and is the optimum instrument for aligning collaborators with business objectives.

An extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, communication protocols and public communication infrastructure to securely share part of the information or operation of an organization with suppliers, buyers, partners, customers or any other business or organization. It can be said that an extranet is part of the Intranet of an organization that extends to users outside it, usually using the Internet and its protocols.

The objetives pursued with the implementation of an Intranet/Extranet solution are

1) Knowledge management and document management

Using the principles of professional document management, it is possible to create a library organized according to the departments or processes of the company (preferably process-oriented), where not only the company’s quality policies, procedures and manuals are stored and managed, but also any operational document belonging to any company procedure. Once filed and centralized, the documents can be edited, classified, indexed, compared, archived and, of course, easily found through a corporate search engine.

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2) Communication and feeling of community

To meet the need for the new workforce, the Intranet must offer multiple forms of communication: employees must be able to connect to any type of platform at any time and from anywhere. The importance of this open and simple channel lies in the sense of belonging to the community it fosters. The choice of the type of channel must be made by the employee according to schedules, tasks required, etc.

3) Collaboration between employees and external clients

An effective Intranet/Extranet should facilitate work regardless of time or space barriers. Apart from authoring and file sharing capabilities, we must provide the technical means to link information with people, creating virtual areas for existing or ad-hoc working groups, where new ideas and projects can be developed.

The Extranet creates forms for the registration of external requests that are integrated into internal workflows controlled by custom workflows, as well as web pages where external customers can track their requests.

4) Reporting and data mining

This type of tools creates a new social culture that allows extracting information to evaluate the quality of the content that is distributed and thus help other users in their work.

For example, we can know the response times to the requests of our customers and thus we will be creating the basis for improved customer service.

5) IT security

The digital work environment we are creating must have powerful security features, not only within the company, but also to allow access to customers and partners. The key features are secure user authentication, identity assurance, information loss prevention, disaster recovery, data encryption, and the ability to manage content access privileges. On the other hand, the protection of the personal data of our employees and customers must be ensured when these data are recorded.

6) Support, interoperability and scalability

An Intranet/Extranet is not a scenario that can be developed and left ready forever. It is a dynamic environment, very changing, which must adapt and evolve according to the needs of the organization and the market. It is important that the Intranet can be easily integrated with other applications (interoperability), some of them very common as the ERP of the company, so that information and workflow can flow between different tools.

There are many reasons not to change a legacy application or database and our platform must accommodate solutions that already work in the company. In addition, it must provide technical support and maintenance services that guarantee the customer a continuous update to the latest technologies on the market or changes that may require the company, without this entailing new investments, which could prevent replenishment of the system.