kyber
21st October 2005, 17:24
I regularly work on strategy and change agendas for major multinationals and whilst the concept of mission statements and like have become a bit of a joke (best realised in Dilbert cartoons) there is real benefit to be had from at least focusing on the simple principles to give direction to a company let alone a website.
One of the reasons the original Woolworths website was, in my personal opinion, not a great success was because the strategy was too unfocused (make everything in the shop available on line basically) and the customer proposition was not well developed. It was the early days of ecommerce for the bricks and mortor companies thought and much learning has gone on since then. I was involved in the purchase of Streets Online and subsequently the effective merger of the Woolworths, MVC and Streets capabilities focused on entertainment became very successful. In contrast, I think we got the launch of diy.com (B&Q) just right (although daughter company Screwfix got there first).
I not surprised that so many small businesses launch websites that clearly fail on the most basic points (other than the technology which is another hobby horse). One of the reasons for this is a lot of web design / web developer companies lack the basic business skills themselves to guide a client through the process of developing decent strategies to drive a website development and lack any understanding of building customer propositions. For some reason, many people still work on the principle that normal business practices do not apply to the web site. Who would think about opening a store without considering location, footfall, flow, health and safety etc?
There is no magic bullet of course. Most small businesses have to do most things for themselves. It is worth taking the time to find a designer/developer with some decent business skills though. You will pay for it in the long run one way or another.
I often reference the online magazine A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/), which is about building beter websites, on this forum and this post in no exception. The oddly titled Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia (or Build a Website for No Reason) (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/landwarinasia) by Greg Storey (http://www.alistapart.com/authors/s/gregstorey) gives some excellent advice on developing simple strategies for websites and I recommend it to designers/developers and anyone thinking of having a site [re]developed.
Stuart
One of the reasons the original Woolworths website was, in my personal opinion, not a great success was because the strategy was too unfocused (make everything in the shop available on line basically) and the customer proposition was not well developed. It was the early days of ecommerce for the bricks and mortor companies thought and much learning has gone on since then. I was involved in the purchase of Streets Online and subsequently the effective merger of the Woolworths, MVC and Streets capabilities focused on entertainment became very successful. In contrast, I think we got the launch of diy.com (B&Q) just right (although daughter company Screwfix got there first).
I not surprised that so many small businesses launch websites that clearly fail on the most basic points (other than the technology which is another hobby horse). One of the reasons for this is a lot of web design / web developer companies lack the basic business skills themselves to guide a client through the process of developing decent strategies to drive a website development and lack any understanding of building customer propositions. For some reason, many people still work on the principle that normal business practices do not apply to the web site. Who would think about opening a store without considering location, footfall, flow, health and safety etc?
There is no magic bullet of course. Most small businesses have to do most things for themselves. It is worth taking the time to find a designer/developer with some decent business skills though. You will pay for it in the long run one way or another.
I often reference the online magazine A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/), which is about building beter websites, on this forum and this post in no exception. The oddly titled Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia (or Build a Website for No Reason) (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/landwarinasia) by Greg Storey (http://www.alistapart.com/authors/s/gregstorey) gives some excellent advice on developing simple strategies for websites and I recommend it to designers/developers and anyone thinking of having a site [re]developed.
Stuart