Before getting your web project off the ground, you should first get a grasp of how exactly you want to use the Internet to achieve your company's business objectives. For example, e-business can help you increase sales, open up new market opportunities, offer existing clients an added channel for responsive service, or reduce operating costs. Keep in mind that by improving customer service, efficiency and productivity, you can invest these savings back into your website or into other areas of your company.
A clear e-strategy helps you determine the scope of your project and how much you want to spend. Ultimately, it gives you the focus you need to create a website that meets your business needs. For instance, your website may be used by customers to retrieve information, place an order, make a reservation or apply for a job. Your objectives then define both the target users of the site and what they want to accomplish by using your site.
Keep in mind that each objective in your e-strategy should provide a clear benefit to your company and to the customer. The objectives will influence how you organize, design and build your site. Examples:
- Enable customers to order any of our products online.
- Allow customers to locate the nearest sales office.
- Provide customers with access to after-sales support.
- Encourage visitors to subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Here are a few helpful pointers:
- Industry experts claim that any e-strategy that takes more than a year to implement will likely fail. The Web environment can change so rapidly that if it takes longer than a year to implement your e-strategy, your objectives may already have changed.
- Given the rapid speed of change on the Internet, it's important that your objectives don't exceed a two-year time span. Industry experts claim that any e-strategy that takes more than a year to implement will likely fail.
- Make sure your e-strategy is in line with or part of your overall strategic planning process. For example, you may want to use your website to increase your overall sales performance.
- Look at both internal processes, such as procurement, and external processes, such as distribution to customers.
- Think business, not just technology. Technology is simply a means to an end; the ultimate success of your site will be gauged on how well it meets your e-strategy objectives.
- When developing your objectives, get feedback from colleagues or customers. For example, you might consider doing a survey on online buying habits.
- Don't build in functionalities that visitors won't use. If online recruitment, for example, is not one of your objectives, don't invest the time to build it into your site.
- Avoid the trap of imitating other websites. Just because another company has added a certain feature to their website doesn't mean you should add it to yours. Adhere to your own business objectives.
- Be sure you have a means to measure the success of your e-business initiative, i.e., Have you increased your market share? Are your customers using your website the way you intended?
- Get e-strategy buy-in from your board or senior management team.
Prioritize your project objectives
As your initiative progresses, the work may take longer than expected and costs may exceed your budget. You may be tempted to reduce the scope of your project in order to meet time and resource constraints. However, you need to be careful about which features you decide to cut. Otherwise, although you may succeed in launching your website on time and on budget, it may be missing important functionality that is needed to support your e-strategy or customer needs.
If you do have to reduce the scope of your project, begin by eliminating features associated with your low-priority objectives. For example, online recruitment might not be at the top of the list for an online store. Remember that it's more important to have a site that achieves at least a few high-priority objectives.
Get external help
If you're looking for help, BDC Consulting offers the affordable e-strat solution which provides you e-business fundamentals and the latest models and applications to develop an effective e-business strategy and action plan. You can choose to either work within a group of companies and share experiences with other entrepreneurs. Or, you may want a one-to-one consultation with our highly experienced e-business consultants.
