Whenever Tennis Canada officials want the scoop on impending tournaments, training sessions and other events, they can simply log onto their new intranet.
"We're using it to provide better information and more rapid access to information for officials who are scattered all around Canada," said William Coffey, manager of officiating at Tennis Canada in Montreal, the sport's national governing body.
Although intranets aren't new, they have traditionally been a technology for large companies with well-funded information technology departments. But that's changing.
Intranets, also sometimes referred to as portals, are basically like a miniature Internet. They are accessed through Web browsers, but they typically run on private local area networks rather than public Web servers. Intranets can be set up for a wide range of tasks -- keeping staff informed about events and issues, distributing software or newsletters and providing access to stored information such as policy manuals, corporate directories and documents.
Related Articles
Some can also be accessed using the Internet, when users are out of the office, through a secure login.
Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and Plumtree Software Inc. are among the companies offering intranet technology that is taking the business world by storm. According to Michael Rudnick, global intranet and portal practice leader at consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, corporate intranets are pretty much the norm now among Fortune 500-type companies in North America.
"They might be rudimentary with basic news and not a lot of stuff on them, but of the larger companies -- over 15,000 to 20,000 employees -- most have a fairly populated intranet."
This widespread corporate use has made the technology more affordable, and intranets are now starting to find their way into smaller organizations, such as Tennis Canada, that want to share information with specific groups of people. These organizations are after the same benefits as their larger peers -- the financial benefits resulting from a decreased reliance on paper, and the productivity benefits stemming from access to a centralized source of data.
Mr. Coffey and another employee created the officiating intranet for about 300 users. "Rather than sending stuff out to them [on paper or by e-mail], the intranet enables us to post it to the site."
And as the cost of the technology falls, it's bringing enterprise-type features within the reach of smaller businesses and branch offices, as well. Single sign-on capabilities, common interface designs and consolidated views of all the functions users need are all important things to consider when installing an intranet, experts say.
The technology behind intranets continues to evolve, as well. Improvements anticipated for the near future will likely be enhancements to features companies have already been using, albeit not as fully as they could, experts say. These upgrades will allow better collaboration among workers, whether they're in the office, on the road or at home, and help boost productivity by ensuring employees can easily find on the intranets exactly what they need.
Wearing the hats of chief information officer and chief technology officer at Novell Canada Ltd. in Markham, Ont., is Ross Chevalier, who said Novell in 1998 installed an enterprise-wide intranet through which employees around the world can access a range of tools and information. It's a model for what smaller companies can expect to be able to offer in the near future.
"We deliver all applications and services through the corporate intranet," said Mr. Chevalier. "We can use any browser and do what we need to do regardless of where we are. Being browser-based encourages a high level of usability . . . it's simple to use, easy to consume and has single sign-on."
"The other thing that people are really just starting to take advantage of is streaming audio/video," Mr. Rudnick added. "It's not really feasible or economical on the system for a company to send out a five-minute video clip of the chief executive officer announcing the next earnings or acquisition, or a new direction of the company or whatever the case may be. These are the kinds of things you can put up on an intranet."
The bells-and-whistles approach, however, isn't desired by all. Although Tennis Canada's new officiating intranet doesn't have all of the nifty features contained in today's more advanced portals, Mr. Coffey said it meets the organization's requirements just fine, helping people share basic information and resources more easily.
"This is going to cover our needs for the next little while," he said.
In Pictures:
