An intranet is simply a web site that is accessed internal to your organization, improving efficiency and reducing the costs of operations. Among larger businesses, recent studies show that 85% of Fortune 200 companies and more than 67% of Fortune 1000 companies have or are developing corporate intranets. It is believed that the number will jump when more small businesses discover that the new solutions on the market are affordable and don't require significant staffing and oversight.

An intranet can save you money, as well. Businesses with five or more employees, particularly employees in remote locations, can save up to 30% on materials, mobile phone, postage and other costs.

Repository for vitals

Employee contact information, sales and marketing data and brochures, appointment calendars, project calendars, vacation schedules and other vital statistics can be kept in a central location, for employees to easily access and to add their own contributions.

Information sharing

An intranet allows a company to quickly post announcements and items of interest to its employees, without tying up e-mail servers. The advantage over e-mail is that an intranet can more easily accommodate newsletters and longer messages, graphics and multiple Web pages; can place a priority on certain messages; can more easily allow for collaboration on a message, and can keep a message in front of people for as long as necessary.

Document sharing

Most businesses already share files through one or more servers. With an intranet, you can design a digital dashboard of sorts for project information and include status reports of who has reviewed and signed off on various research papers, articles and pictures. An intranet also allows for quicker access to files, and easier management, organization, storage and transfer of documents.

Electronic procurement

An increasing number of companies are using their intranets for ordering supplies, hiring vendors and making other external transactions. With an intranet, order forms can be stored, allowing any or all employees to do the ordering, and transactions can be documented for all to see.

Expense reporting

Likewise, employees can have a central location to file expense reports, enter sick days or vacation days taken, fill out human resources forms and conduct other business internally.

Project collaboration

Most intranets allow an administrator the ability to restrict read-or-write privileges, depending on the employee or project. That means certain parts of the company intranet can off-limits to certain people, enabling smaller groups to collaborate among themselves to get work done.

Discussion boards

Most intranets include discussion boards, where issues can be hashed out in an open forum, without creating massive e-mail threads.