FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
“Intranet” is a private network used by an organisation. The primary purpose of an intranet is to help employees to securely communicate among each other, to store information and to help collaboration. Modern intranets use social features that allow employees to create profiles and to submit, like, comment and share posts.
An intranet is an effective way for a company to share company updates, store files, connect employees, and to collaborate with teams or departments across borders. Most intranets are used to increase productivity and employee engagement, or to simply give employees a voice in the company.
Whether cloud-based or on-premise intranet, using an intranet allows your company to connect securely across locations and time zones, anytime and anywhere. It is an effective tool for easier internal communication and to bring employees together. Depending on your company security, this means 24/7 access to your organization’s digital environment.
The Internet is the underlying technology that enables an intranets connectivity. Intranet and internal are usually kept apart to keep the intranet secure. To access the intranet, employee’s computers need to be connected to your organization’s local area network (LAN). These computers need to have web browser software for example: Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer. Firewalls are put up as gatekeepers and to provide security.
The internet is a globally-connected network of computers and publically accessible by anybody. The intranet is a local or restricted network and only accessible to people within an organization. Another big difference is that an intranet is a software as a service (SaaS) that can be bought or licensed by a company. The internet is not owned by a single person or organization but companies or governments can own certain bits.
There are a lot of cases on how businesses use an intranet, so we’ll link you to a few. Randstad Sourceright, a recruitment company, used their intranet to connect a global workforce. Trimble Solutions uses theirs to enhance productivity. ZPG, the company behind Zoopla and uSwitch, have never had one single source of truth for internal knowledge and communication. Now the organization has one place to access everything.