Ideas and Tools
Website Strategy
Designing websites to fit Strategy
"The internet is a powerful set of tools that can be used wisely
or unwisely in almost any industry in almost any strategy."
- Professor Michael Porter
Organisations all too often find their web site project driven
by web designers and technicians rather than the organisation's
mission. The issues which any organisation needs to be clear about
before offering a technical specification to web designers are
listed below. They are phrased as questions to your organisation:
1. Who are your existing and potential customers, and what are
their needs from the website? What benefits will your organisation
deliver to its customers through its web site?
2. What are the objectives of your business plan and how will the
web site support these objectives without distracting from current
priorities? Should the website be developed in discrete stages,
linking into other priorities and budgets in business plans over
more than one year? What will be the effect of the website on
future income and expenditure budgets?
3. What resources are available for the set-up, and more
importantly, the ongoing maintenance and development of the
site? What staff skills and budgets are currently available and
how will these need to be augmented to support the website?
4. How could the web site be used to develop relationships with
customers? What facilities could be built in to collect customer
feedback and maintain a dialogue with customers (Online forms,
questionnaires, discussion groups, etc)? What are the staffing
implications of offering these technical facilities?
5. How will your organisation deal with Intellectual Property
Rights associated with publishing on the web? What contracts and
arrangements will be made with copyright holders for using their
work on the site? What arrangements could be put in place to
develop an income stream from digital property developed and
published by your organisation?
6. What policy does your organisation have, or intend to devise,
in relation to building an intranet (internal website for staff)
and an extranet (providing access to information for selected
customers and partners)? How do these initiatives fit into the
overall web publishing plans?
7. How will your organisation's disability access policy relate
to the website? What balance will be struck between the
accessibility and aesthetics of the site? (For example, the use of
frames seriously affects accessibility for people using adaptive
technology).
8. Will e-commerce be used on the site (to sell goods and services
and take credit card payments)?
9. Should your organisation's existing publications and
documentation be published on the website? What are the
advantages and disadvantages of this?
10. How will the website be publicised, through search engines,
links from other sites, and other means? Who will be responsible
for this ongoing work?
Conclusion
Any organisation's website strategy needs to be integrated with
its mission and business plan; it cannot be 'bolted on'. This
requires serious consideration at the highest level. Inevitably
this delays the process when there is often an impatience to get
a website up and running. Nevertheless a carefully thought out web
publishing strategy will support the achievement of your mission.
Note: This web page is not intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the
subject, merely a brief introduction to provoke thought and to lead to a more in depth
understanding and application of the topic, either through further reading - or from me
as your management consultant, executive trainer or personal coach in a
consultancy project, training course, workshop or seminar.