What you should be doing instead is to first develop a macro level
business strategy that provides a road map for adapting your business
to the era of e-business. Just like developing a business strategy
for the old economy, your e-business strategy should start by
considering your current position in the market including strengths
and weaknesses, products and distribution channels, the challenge
posed by competition, new opportunities in the market, etc. But at
the same time you need to consider the opportunities and challenges
posed by the Internet, such as the potential to interact directly
with customers to streamline distribution channels as well as the
competitive threat posed by new market entrants leveraging the
Internet.
The next step is mapping a path to implement that strategy while
putting the primary emphasis on delivering a positive experience to
your customers, channel partners and the others with whom you
interact. Trying to avoid going down the blind alley of making
incremental improvements to your existing business. For example,
business units, with each targeting specific products and markets,
may organize your company. In that case, the individual business
units are doubtless thinking about how they can optimize their own
piece of the pie rather than the effect of the e-business revolution
on the entire company. Chances are, many of these units may be
performing the same business processes in slightly different ways.
In that case, there are probably serious opportunities of scale
across those business units, such as using the same technology to
perform processes such as sales order processing, inventory or
customer service. Taking advantage of these opportunities will
require a big-picture perspective that requires the involvement of
top management to serve as an integrating force.
It's important that your e-business strategy the focus not on the
needs of fiefdoms within your own company but rather on the experience
of the user of your system, whether it's a customer, general partner
or employee that is interacting with you. One of the most important
areas is segmenting your strategy to address the individual needs of
different users. For example, a human resources Intranet should be
subdivided so that employees are able to quickly get information on
their benefits and compensation while human resources professionals
are able to obtain the much more complex information that they need
to do their jobs.
Personalization is often the key to providing an outstanding
experience to the users of your Web site. As an example, one of our customers
developed a first-generation web site that delivered a large volume
of basic technical support information on their Web site but failed
to impact the rapidly growing need for personal support services. The
solution was developing a more personalized approach that provides
important advantages over traditional technical support. Now, when a
customer hits their support site, it now knows who they are, the
products they own, how long they have owned them, what release they
are on, what level of support services they have contracted for, etc.
The support site then provides them with a customized interface that
addresses their individual needs. For example, it provides the status
of outstanding service requests and technical bulletins on equipment
they own.
It almost goes without saying that it's very risky to rely upon your
own perception of your customers' needs. A far more effective approach
is to let actual customers evaluate your existing site as well as the
approach you are considering on a prototype basis so they can express
their opinion as to whether it meets their needs. Focus groups and
usability studies provide an excellent method to determine without a
major investment whether or not your site is easy to navigate,
delivers the correct brand impressions, contains the features and
content that your customers are looking for, etc.
Another point to consider is that no matter how good a job you do in
developing your strategy, it's going to be outdated in six months.
That's why it's so important to develop a flexible, scalable
architecture that will allow your system to easily adapt to the
future.
Within a year after your site goes online, there's no doubt the
competitive landscape will have changed. You may have purchased a
company, been acquired, entered new markets, changed your distribution
channels, etc. The use of open standards and industry standard tools
can contribute to the development of architecture with real staying
power. Be sure to investigate the financial strength and market
position of the companies that you choose to provide components.
Their ability to support you over the long term is just as important
as the value of their technology.
Finally, one critical part of your e-business strategy is the use of
technology in your company. Are you going to build up your own
expertise to maintain your e-business? In that case, you need to
develop a programming staff, graphical design studio, editorial staff
for content development, etc. The other alternative is to outsource
your technology development to a service provider that will maintain
your infrastructure and deliver your applications as a hosted service.
This approach has the advantage of allowing you to focus on your core
business operations and outsource the technology issues to a
specialist. Whichever approach you take, develop a strategy that
takes advantage of the changes wrought by the e-business revolution
and your chances of success will be high.
