If you’re transacting business online, or even just collecting information from your users, examining your security model must be a top priority. While malicious data breaches capture the headlines and bring devastating lawsuits for a company, simply exposing the wrong data or information to an unintended person can have equally harmful consequences. For instance, imagine the impact on profits should your proprietary product or go-to-market information be accessed by hackers through your partner extranet.

Further, almost all organizations are subject to regulations and audits of some sort. Having the proper level of security and traceability is a must to meet regulatory guidelines.

Admittedly, not all data needs to have the same level of security. Some data needs to be highly secure and requires extra layers of authentication and monitoring. Other less critical information can be protected more easily and with a lower investment. Our customers typically know their data, the sensitivity level of this information and the level of security needed. Brainspire consultants have the technical skills and expertise leveraging best practices to design and build public and private sites that meet each client’s unique security needs.

Every public and secure site will have some common functional requirements. For instance, every site needs an easy way to update and manage content, offers and graphics. New content should be easily created and published by those creating the content, not software developers. This is where leveraging a proven content management system (CMS) will provide basic out of the box functionality with little investment. In addition to basic backend usability, ALL websites should be easy to navigate on a mobile device. If your site isn’t mobile friendly through responsive design, it’s absolutely time for a new website.

Conversely, most businesses have some unique functional requirements for their public and secured sites that wouldn’t be accommodated by an off the shelf solution. Perhaps your organization is aggregating information from other sites and displaying the results? Or maybe your site is collecting customer information, integrating this data into a CRM system and offering deals based on their past buying habits? The point is that growing, creative and thriving businesses have unique functional requirements that can separate your business from your competition if done correctly.
If you have some new ideas and unique functional requirements, share them with us. Brainspire excels at capturing your requirements, then developing and deploying web-based software solutions that meet your exact needs. We typically develop these solutions using an iterative process, meaning we can develop and release features in small increments as needed – building a more robust solution on a solid foundation to make sure you have a greater return on your investment.

Even if your business is only publishing a simple “brochure-ware” marketing-type website, integration with other software can provide business advantages. For instance, most customers will want the analytics around who is visiting their site, how did they find the site, where did they click, how long did they stay and are they a new visitor or current customer. Using even the most basic data collected can provide valuable insight.
Most public sites and all secured intranet and extranet sites perform advanced functions needing integration to other backend applications or databases. Typical integrations include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, financial / ERP systems, payment processing software, workflow and supply chain software, and a variety of custom applications and databases (both internal and 3rd party Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions). Brainspire builds custom solutions to integrate your web portals into the backend software that drives your business by leveraging existing APIs or building custom web services to meet your exact needs, eliminating the need for any manual data entry.

Custom Intranet Portals

Brainspire creates secure, intuitive, branded and searchable intranet solutions for efficient content creation and storing / retrieving key information (i.e. reports & dashboards, documents, presentations, video) for all business units including HR, Finance, Sales and Marketing, Legal and Operations.

Secure Extranets

Using web development technologies and best practices for security, Brainspire develops private websites and secure web applications to share information and drive operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, select customers and member groups.

Website Development

Brainspire develops public facing websites to attract visitors with key content, blogs and search engine optimization (SEO), capture and analyze visitor information that contributes to lead generation and pipeline management, and engage customers with relevant information, social site integration, and full ecommerce solutions. Brainspire is not a design firm; we are a development firm. We develop sites that are performance rich and can partner with your internal marketing department or a 3rd party design firm to implement the look and feel that best represents your company.

Aside from giving customers complete visibility of their interactions with the company, customer portals make purchasing and making payments available 24/7 to customers, and businesses have more ways to generate revenue. Portals can be used to save time on responses, solve user problems, and communicate with organizations while providing custom content and streamlined customer service. Customer analytics are also easy to gather and use based on secure information provided through portals. Given the above-mentioned benefits, it's easy to see why portal solutions can be cost-effective in the long run.

In terms of business value, intranets encourage productivity and communication within an organization. Intranets, as a centralized corporate information system, help improve the productivity of employees, provide relevant content to users, and give support for remote or mobile workers while adapting to the organization's needs. Modern intranets help organizations foster communication, so teams can hold open discussions, individuals can exchange knowledge, management can stay in touch, and departments can provide updates.

The key benefit of using extranets is that organizations can communicate and transact in a more controlled and secure environment which prioritizes privacy while providing the flexibility for the users to access business information 24 hours a day. It also reduces errors since order histories are recorded so that they can verify payment and balances, and also process orders from suppliers and distributors simultaneously.

Extranets facilitate communication with clients and vendors, while intranets allow employees and colleagues to collaborate in a virtual space - most of the time without the involvement of external parties. Recently, extranets have become interchangeable with portal solutions that can be integrated with third-party systems that allow for interaction with external stakeholders. All of these solutions are different from the Internet, which has the capacity to grant all users access to all resources available.