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Supporting the connected company.

Main Highway has always had a commitment to serving organisations of all sizes and capabilities. However, we realise that many have few resources and little time to invest in the transformation into a networked enterprise. Our extranet community is designed to help these organisations take advantage of the connected working revolution.

Bringing you into our community

The Main Highway extranet is a community in its own right. The common interest is an eagerness to develop capabilities in networked enterprise. This can be anything from learning how to use e-mail to using a Main Highway sourced form template for some business purpose, or to develop your own community within our community of communities.

Your first step into our community is to become a registered member. All you do is add your company name to the Main Highway database. In doing this you immediately start networking, becoming one of thousands of companies benefiting from our regional search engines. Your company details can now be found by buyers from all over the region.

An alternative registration method is to register through one of our local hosts. Through their search engine you will be given priority in the presentation of search results.

A third way to join our community is as a local host. If you are the administrator of a membership group or association you can benefit from our local host programme and get all your members registered on-line in their own community benefitting from Main Highway technology.

Once registered you will obtain access to all our Service pages.

Developing our extranet - your membership matters

Our extranet is developed by its membership and their needs. We divide our activity up into strands - themed content areas relating to IT, employment practice, international trading and more. It is important to recognise that this is an evolving process and any shortfall in rich content is a reflection of what we all do as members.

In that sense, if we are weak in any editorial area this is an opportunity for any member with the right business knowledge to pick up the challenge and use our technology services to develop that strand further.

MAINHighway technology is available to those developing connnected working methods within the extranet on an at-cost basis. We effectively give you your own IT-internet development department!

As the extranet grows with more communities joining into our community of communities, the mutuality of our grouping will develop across the shared extranet. Members are already benefitting from being connected to each other, for example, businesses in our Chamber databases regularly make use of the presence of the nation's linguists within the extranet. We urge all those who are looking forward to a connected future to join us and make our community thrive.

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A community of communities

Once a hosted community is connected Main Highway works to catalyse electronic working through a development program for all its communities. - We promote their presence, their abilities, and their interest in being connected companies. Any membership organisation or user group can join us as a Hosted Community.

Benefits include:

• Saving large sums of money by avoiding customised development.

• Widespread promotion across our community of like-minded businesses

• Access to generic technology and e-tools at low cost

• Joining a common registered member platform for inter-community trading

• Access to our common platform TollWay payments system

• A presence within a wider community making e-business happen

Solutions in partnership:

The Main Highway community of communities wants to hear from any community that wishes to extend its presence on-line and, if acceptable, as a specialist host. You will be surprised how quickly we can help build your community with our expertise in content, community and technology. Contact us now.

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Characteristics of the connected company - as a progression of ability

It uses e-mail as a method of communication to suppliers and customers.

The world wide web is used as a way of communicating information to suppliers and customers with a view to reduce overheads and increase productivity.

Internet access for research and business process use is available to all staff. Agreed useage protocols, not lock-outs delineate the extent of access.

There is a drive to use electronic methods to share, collect and transmit information.

Information flowing from outside the organisation collected electronically is passed to internal systems without re-keying or re-formatting.

The same applies to information from inside the organisation to the outside.

Management have a forward vision of a barrierless working environment in which wide area and internal working practices are seamlessly integrated.

Let the MAINHighway extranet take you there.