Extranet: Arming The Workforce With Remotely Accessible Tools

By Ben McKinley

At CWD, it can be a real challenge to focus and promote our efforts in any one industry or category. While we've seen exciting growth with outdoor product companies, law firms, and construction companies; we serve and welcome clients from industries far and wide.

One area we have seen clear segmentation is in the people with whom we work. When it comes to delivering innovative, cool sites that create a unique brand experience, we are usually working with marketing minds. Whether working with an agency partner or client, the focus is on creating a positive and powerful experience for customers and prospects. Although, unless there are clear conversions like ecommerce sales, a direct ROI can be challenging to measure. Therefore, during tough times like now, we are seeing smaller budgets and bigger expectations.

Another significant focus of our business is with Extranets (AKA Intranets) where the focus is less on design and more on usability, operational efficiencies and return on investment. In these cases, we find ourselves working with IT and Operations minds. A colleague suggested that if you're not reducing costs and/or easing pain for a company, new sales are a real challenge, these days. Given this logic, it comes as no surprise that client interest in Extranets has remained strong, even during the worst of times.

Our relationships with clients needing help automating their processes and allowing for more efficient remote collaboration seem to breed strong, long standing relationships. These clients are truly partnering with us to evolve their businesses over time. The users of these solutions generally include employees, dealers, reps, and suppliers.

Extranets (what is an Extranet?) require significant initial research and strategy work in order to understand our clients current approach to business. We then work to arrive at new, innovative ways to move those processes from local networks/desktops to the web. We also find ourselves integrating a number of separate online tools that are currently in use. Among all the benefits of this new solution, there will also be a significant cultural shift in the organization. We include this topic early on to ensure post-launch success.

The initial solution rarely touches all sides of the business, but rather focuses on improving one or several pain points experienced by the company. The Evergreen platform's flexibility allows for long term evolution. I would contend that an Extranet is never truly 'done' and that ongoing budgets should be established as needs shift and evolve over time.

If we do our job well, the client becomes more efficient by leveraging technology. This allows them to reallocate their staff resources, accelerate training and see real savings in their bottom line. When all of those priorities align, it becomes a no-brainer to continue investment in the Extranet.

CWD takes a unique approach to intranets that is flexible and scales well as needs evolve. There are a number of solutions out there to assist companies in automating their processes and backing up data, while keeping security a main focus. Please contact us to explore further.