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Information sharing in secure environment. Information needed to support business 

through a range of business partners can be shared using an extranet. Vlosky et al. (2000) 

give the example of advertising agency Saatchi using an extranet to allow their advertis-

ers to access draft advertising material during a project. Information for suppliers is 

often shared by providing a log-in to a database which shows demand for products.

 2 

Cost reduction. Operating processes can be made more efficient through an extranet. 

The example given by these authors is Merisel, a $3.5 billion computer hardware reseller 

reducing its order processing costs by 70%. Such cost reductions are achieved by reducing 

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Chapter 3  Managing digital business infrastructure

the number of people involved in placing orders and the need to rekey information from 

paper documents.