Plan for the organisation's Web site

Business success on the Internet involves planning and preparation including strategic thinking, targeted marketing, network systems development and state-of-the-art technology. Planning the Web site for a business, including what products and information will be available, should be in direct correlation with a company's fulfilment capabilities. How the Web site looks, what is offered and the ease of delivery are critical to attracting and retaining new customers. The upside of having a Web site is to increase business as well as performing business more effectively and efficiently. The downside is not having enough capacity to fulfil customers' needs whether through incompatible back-office systems or insufficient staff or products.

Strategic planning is essential not only to create a "sticky" site (one that visitors will explore and return to) but also to ensure that it wil l interface with all aspects of the business successfully. Hartman, Sifonis & Kador (2000) say most companies have not seen truly transformative impacts of competitiveness and value creation. Their

research shows that most organisations have deployed e-business initiatives on an ad hoc, somewhat opportunistic basis insufficiently supported by the structural

requirements to execute competently. These organisations have sunk unmeasured resources into e-business initiatives without seeing results anywhere near the returns they expected and have little or no clue about the total costs of ownership of their Web initiatives nor about how they would measure any positive return on investment. The

investment in new information technology is a key decision for both managers and highly skilled knowledge workers (Karahanna & Straub, 1 999).

An organisation needs to research customers to find out what they expect from its Web site and if they will use it. They could be asked what they think of other online

services they use -what they don't like and what they do, the things they find useful _I and the sort of information they'd like to see included. This will ensure a good

starting point for the content to include on the site and may save the organisation from some pitfalls.

Another, aspect to consider is the other audiences that an organisation may attract by being online. The site isn't constrained by business hours or geography so the organisation's systems need to have the capacity to cope with an international audience.

Probably the biggest mistake that can be made is to develop a site without a clear idea of what it is intended to achieve. Consideration needs to be given to whether an organisation's site will be used to sell products or services or whether it wil l serve as an information brochure. Online selling needs security for online transactions, linking

. it to the inventory database and responsive feedback and inquiry services.

Thought needs to be given to the focus of the site and whether the organisation wants to build an online community. Two good ways of doing this are mailing lists and discussion forums. The planning team needs to think through how these will work and the content to be used. A mailing list originating from a database that customers join online can be beneficial when offering something of value but may backfire in the forums if misused for junk email posts. An important aspect is considering what competitors offer online- both national and international.

When considering a Web presence, clear goals are essential. The kind of audience targeted should implicitly affect the information contained on the Web site. If the organisation is planning to sell services on the Web, an understanding is needed of the effect this will have on the existing channel. If the site will sell goods and services directly to end consumers, thought needs to be given to the efficiency of the processes. Perhaps the Web site should be integrated with the inventory system so the moment that an item is out of stock or there is a surplus, the item can either be taken off the Web site or presented as a special. The organisation may want the capability to tune the system so that when the price of a product changes this is immediately reflected online. This can however uncover holes in existing processes so thought should be given to how well equipped the organisation is to handle instantaneous purchases. Another aspect is that while some customers will purchase items out of convenience, others will expect some price advantage for buying online (Bell, 1 999).

The Internet is an untidy system with millions of individual pages. When developing a site's content it is important to consider the links that tie them together and how users will navigate the site. One way to find out what users will expect to find when they

come to the site, is to ask them and make this a priority when developing the order of content on the front page and navigation tools (Richard son, 1 999). Although there is some validity in this, users do not always wish to spend their "online time" helping out businesses when it is often very easy for them to find a competitor of the business already meeting their needs.

The key to a successful site is ongoing development. If an organisation is planning to attract users to their products or services the site needs to give them a reason to keep

. coming back to the site. Businesses looking to develop and launch their own e­

commerce sites can plan on spending $ 1 million and five months on average to "get on the map," and more than $20 million for a place in cyberspace that sets them apart from the competition, a Gartner Group report said in 1 999. No matter how much they expect to pay, companies will actually shell out more than budgeted to begin selling goods or services online (Diederich, 1 999b).

Gartner Group polled 20 midsize to large corporations launching a first-phase e­ commerce site, either business-to-business or business to consumer. Survey

participants said building their sites was more complicated than expected. Regardless of how much they spent, none of them claimed to have completed the job "on budget." Analyst Alyse Terhune, who contributed to the report, said a surprisingly high 79% of the total site cost was spent on labour and systems integration, while software and hardware accounted for a respective 1 0% and 1 1 %. The ratio of labour to software expenditure was 30-to- 1 , she added. Labour costs were likely to decline as systems integrators became more adept. However, those savings would be counterbalanced by "keeping up with the lones," she said. That meant scrambling to stay abreast of competitors as key new technologies and services emerged.

In addition, firms that were delaying plans to get on the Web could look forward to spending more to do so. As technology improves, it is likely the costs associated with developing and launching an e-commerce site would as well. "Clients typically under­ budget in the first one or two implementations. But that's OK, because the underlying thrust of the corporation is to get with e-business," Terhune said. "They are

accomplishing a critical corporate requirement for not just remaining competitive, but for gaining significant market share and overall survival."

Gerstner, IBM's chairman and CEO, says because customers of all businesses will expect to be able to conduct transactions of every kind over the Web, companies must focus on making their Web sites work seamlessly. "Quality that was acceptable on the Internet last year is no good this year," says Gerstner. Michael Clifford, Dell

Computer Corp's vice president and CIO says the way to ensure Web site quality and efficiency is to create an Internet team responsible for the site. Organisations should expect and plan for 50% of sales to be via the Web in just a few years (cited in Lais,

Various delays and additional costs often result from the unexpected amount of work needed to build the front and back ends of e-commerce sites. One of the keys to a successful site is the ability to translate vision into value.