Page 60 - DCAP306_DCAP511_E-COMMERCE_AND_E-BUSINESS

Unit 5: Intranet and Extranet for E-Commerce

The figure 5.2 depicts the use of intranets.

Figure 5.2: Extranet and Intranet

As shown in figure 5.2, the intranet connects internal organizational functions together for efficiency
and timeliness within the firm. The internal functions include accounting, inventory, purchasing,
shipping, and so on. When intranets are expanded to include external organizations as authorized users
of an organization’s intranet, they create extranets.
The new business standard is based on the virtual corporation model which is attained through a
combination of intranets and extranets. The universal access to information which is facilitated by the
Internet, intranet and extranet is the basis of new business models for e-commerce.

1. Business transactions which are internal to an enterprise are also considered as e-
commerce.
2. Internet sales, order processing, fund transfer for accounting purposes, and intra
company charging and billing are some of the transactions which can be very large
dependent on the size and nature of the corporation.

The intranet promotes the management of internal corporate information that may be interconnected
with a company’s e-commerce transactions (or transactions conducted outside the intranet). The
intranet allows direct flow of internal information. Therefore, important information can be processed
and matched with data flowing from external e-commerce transactions. This allows the efficient
integration of the corporation’s organizational processes.
EDI capabilities can be added to the existing business applications of organizations which can be
enabled on the Web for e-commerce. The intranets and extranets are contributing to the growth of e-
commerce through provision of secure transactions on the open Internet paths.

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system vendors like Baan, PeopleSoft, SAP
and Oracle are trying to integrate e-commerce solutions into their products.
Did you know?
5.1.1 Intranet Services

An intranet provides Internet services within an organization. The intranet client is a universal browser
that uses TCP/IP protocol. There may be many servers in the organization that support many services
on any operating system. These servers are considered to be a part of the intranet as long as they
support TCP/IP protocol stack.
An intranet has to be designed for the specific functional requirements of an organization. The services
may include the following:
1. Mail services
2. File transfers

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