Top 7 reasons why your business needs an extranet

An extranet is an area that can only be accessed by privileged users via a password protected login system. This enables information to be exchanged effectively to clients, staff, partners and customers. 

Here are the top 7 reasons why your business will benefit from using an extranet: 

1. Increased productivity

An extranet provides better productivity for your workforce. It will allow you to share up-to-date information to the appropriate person or group, without the worry of getting overlooked in an email inbox or lost in the post.

2. Improved supply chain

Stock levels can be linked directly to your supplier and the system can notify you whenever a new order needs to be placed. This means that stock levels will be maintained at the most effective level.

3. Improved quality of services

Customers will be able to log in to their own private areas and quickly view elements such as order histories, account information, order status etc and be able to update them accordingly. 

4. Effective communication/collaboration 

For companies who have a product that involves a lot of people, for example engineers at an industrial company, an extranet will enable the appropriate members to share and access information such as documents, contracts and images without having to have face to face meetings or phone calls.

5. Improved security

An extranet enables you to control who accesses your site and therefore data through a password protected login area. You grant access to specific people or groups of people to view different information, so they only see what they are meant to.

6. Cost Effective

Although there may be an initial build cost, an extranet will cut down costs associated with creating, printing and posting multiple documents as well as reducing the time it takes employees to answer customer questions or travel to meetings. Extranet login privileges can also be charged for to other businesses to access the data stored.

7. Flexibility

Quick delivery of data and information is vital and an extranet can allow you to do this. The stored data can be accessed by people at any location and in any timezone and also be updated instantly. This reduces the need for phone calls and extra correspondence as a self serve approach is used.

If you would like to find out more about the process we adopt please view our extranet page.