The Internet and Your Business

Popularly referred to as the "Information Superhighway," the National Information Infrastructure (NII), and services related to it, the Internet is often misunderstood by the media hype that has made it so popular among those who wish to stay on the cutting edge.

Evolution Of The Internet

The Internet was originally a government-funded network with restricted access. As a result, most educational institutions are already on the Internet, giving your business access to some of the greatest minds in research and education. Beginning in 1987, the Internet began to evolve into more commercially oriented activities and today's Internet providers are primarily for-profit businesses.

As the Internet began this transition, it also became a vehicle for business research. The Internet now provides access to literally thousands of information sources on topics ranging from economic indicators to government regulations. But in the early '90's, the use of the Internet still required a high level of technical expertise, and did not represent a viable option for main-line business activities.

Recent innovations have made the Internet fully accessible to non-technical individuals and now a whole new wave of business applications are available.

Today's businesses face new and complex problems that can be solved, to a great extent, through improving communications, both internally end externally. Computer communications networks are a key component to the overall solution. Although computer networks have been in common business use for almost two decades, the Internet is taking the business network technology to a whole new plateau by linking one network to the other. Like other technological advances such as the telephone and video technology, the Internet impacts business communications between enterprises as well as within your own company.

Because the Internet improves communication, "interlinked" and "extralinked" networks help improve productivity. In addition, the Internet can help your business adapt to market pressures that include shrinking product life cycles, demands for quality and superior customer service, and an ever changing market that can no longer sustain mass marketing techniques.

Once you realize that you can communicate electronically with people all over the world and never leave your office or make a long-distance telephone call, you will understand why the phrase "exponential growth" is often mentioned in many articles about the Internet. More and more people are being connected and are able to communicate and share information daily.

The World Wide Web is one of many information services offered on the Internet. Communicating through a particular port on a computer (server) connected to the Internet, the World Wide Web is a graphical resource that is extremely easy to use and accessible by most Internet users. To access the World Wide Web, a user must have a PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) account on the Internet. These can be obtained for around US$10 to US$30 per month from any Internet Service Provider (ISP). The World Wide Web is also accessible via many other on-line commercial services such as America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy.

World Wide Web pages are often referred to as, "Billboards on the Information Superhighway," to continue the popular transportation metaphor. Billboards deliver advertising, public relations and community awareness messages that are supposed to almost subliminally invade our awareness of a particular product or service and familiarize us with a brand name or logo on our travel to our ultimate destination, be it work, school or a drive to the movies. This popular metaphor breaks down because the messages we are assaulted with on a daily basis are a form of one-way communication and only engage at attention for seconds as we drive quickly by.

Imagine a billboard that could answer questions, give out prices, provide inventory, product and general information, take orders, track shipments and even entertain you and provide you with important information that directly impacts your life. If you were actually driving you might never get to your original destination!

Now you're beginning to get an idea of what the World Wide Web is all about. But the real power of the Web is not obvious until you begin to use it. By pointing and clicking your mouse at a word or picture, a user can move from one location to another -- literally around the world -- without knowing any computer names or addresses. This is what is referred to as "surfing." Users "catch a wave" of information and follow it to it's source with the ease of a click on their mouse.

The Web presents "pages" of "home pages" of information. Special links are built (coded) into these pages which allow a user to move effortlessly from one page to another by simply clicking on the text they want to know more about. One moment you may find yourself reading a page concerning the war in Bosnia, and then, only a click away, you might be listening to an audio report from a reporter who is actually there. While you listen to this report, you could be looking at a satellite image which displays the current local weather map or purchasing travel clothes from a virtual storefront in Arizona. Best of all, a surfer doesn't even need to know the addresses of computers where all this information is stored, he or she simply clicks on what is interesting to them -- and they are there!

Powerful search engines exist on the Web to help someone find particular information. You just type in a search term and receive a list of abstracts. Simply click on the one that interests you most and you're viewing the entire source document or page. Rich multimedia pages composed of formatted text, images, sound and even short video clips illustrate the information you discover.

The investment in time, effort, and money is very, very low compared to more traditional forms of advertising and marketing. Best yet, your customers can easily be kept abreast of the latest developments at your business without the overhead of bulk mail, postage and long-distance charges by using this state-of-the -art technology.

Companies frequently establish an "Internet Presence" which combines marketing and product support aspects.

An integrated Internet resource can be created which provides:

	Product Information
	Dealer Names and Locations
	Product Support Services via email
	Auto-response email for standard information
	Educational Offerings
	Business History and Employee Resumes

An Internet Presence has the following benefits:

	Greatly reduced support expenses combined with improved customer responsiveness.
	Much lower printing and distribution costs for product support and information.
	Reduced time and frustration for "telephone tag."
	Targeted marketing presenting just the right amount of information about your product or service.
	Obtain specific demographic and psychographic information to better meet your customer's needs.

These benefits will provide you with the competitive edge through the millennium.

ICIR is available to your firm. We're prepared to show you how to make the most of your Internet presence on the World Wide Web. We offer a full suite of Internet information services, including development, copy writing HTML encoding, training and installations, Internet marketing, and product development.

Feel free to give us a call to get it all started. We're available to your business for a complimentary 45 minute one-to-one consultation. Just give us a call at 210.828.9964, or email us here.

If you already have access to the Web, take a look at our website at: http://www.icir.com