Understanding the Basics and importance of an Intranet

An Intranet is a private network created within an organization to improve communication and collaboration among team members. With the internet as public as it is, many companies have turned to an intranet to communicate and collaborate with their employees more efficiently and securely.

What is an Intranet?

The term’ intranet,’ which means a network only for a particular group of people, is mainly used in companies for data transmission. In the past, it was separate from the internet-but today, this has changed. Restricted to employees, an intranet is now an increasingly common tool for businesses. This is because it provides access only to insiders and is “internal” for the company.  It is a computer network that provides an environment for sharing information inside the company, and it is typically connected to the internet. Intranets allow employees to share files, send messages, and collaborate online and offline.

A good intranet should be easy to use and help employees save time by keeping them up-to-date with what is going on in their company. It should be accessible from both desktops and smartphones or other mobile devices. An intranet should also feature one-click access to a company’s documents, templates, etc., reducing the time spent looking for these crucial resources. The term comes from the Latin “intra” and means – inside. So we could say that complete expression means – internal network.

How does an Intranet work?

An intranet is a software solution that creates a platform with an extensive range of features. Therefore, the system is exceptionally suitable for the swift exchange of data between employees. Your intranet may be disconnected from the internet to keep outside threats away. However, nowadays, nearly all intranets have a connection to the internet. There are many benefits to using a VPN in the workplace. One of these is that they can work from anywhere with full remote access to intranet (or internal) sites or services. Another highlight of this type is that they encrypt all communication with the intranet like Microsoft Teams.

Advantages VS. Disadvantages of the Intranet

While an intranet is a reasonably new concept, it has been rising for a few years now. Here are some reasons why. By implementing an intranet, small businesses can benefit from several things. These include:

• Better communication
• Enhanced security
• Centralized content and files
• Increased collaboration

You can have different roles for individual users, so they have different access levels.

Solutions are often highly customizable to suit the needs of your company or another group.

In general, a modern intranet can also be very easily opened to customers or other external actors (and thus to the extranet).

The intranet allows employees to be monitored as their actions are recorded. There’s only one downside to the intranet concept. If you rely on your provider for services running on the company network, this comes with some risk. For example, you depend on your provider to provide software updates for network-dependent programs like an email client.