What will derail your website strategy?

I just read Scott Glatstein’s article in the American Chronicle about Business Strategy Execution: 4 Reasons Why Your Company’s Strategy Isn’t Working. (A nod to Erica Olsen who posted about this on her blog, Strategically Speaking, and got me thinking.)

Scott Glatsteins’ four points of a failing strategy were:

1. The strategy fails to recognize the limitations of the existing organization.
2. Employees don’t know how the strategy applies to their daily work.
3. The organization’s business systems or processes can’t support the strategy.
4. Performance metrics and rewards are not aligned with the strategy.

The same four things that can cause a business strategy to fail can cause your website’s performance to derail or be greatly diminished. I always tell clients that small changes to their website can demand large changes to their business. I think of it as the mind|body disconnect of the web. The client often thinks that the mind (the business) is disconnected from the body (in this case the website.) Mr. Glatsteins’ four points outline where this disconnect can be. Let’s look at an example:

ABC widget wants an email contact form for their website as an alternate method for customers to contact them. The form will store the customer’s information and message in a database and send a notification email to info@abcwidget.com. They hire a web development firm and get the form built. Right before launch (or worse yet – after launch) someone within the company asks a simple question: “Who is info@abcwidget.com?”

There is stunned slience as no one has considered before where the email notification goes. This question then gives birth to more questions (hopefully):

• What is the schedule for checking the email address? (business process)
• Does the person who checks the email need to reply? Is there a generic script? (business process)
• Where do requests get routed to? (business process)
• How are requests tracked? (metrics)
• What is the expected turnaround time for a customer request? (metrics)

All this for a simple form! Every interactive piece of a website (where you are requesting a customer to communicate with you) requires a business process and responsiblity chart. It seems overkill, but when Janice in accounts recievable leaves the company and stops checking the generic email account – will anyone know what to do? Will they even realize what Janice had been doing for years?
If these questions haven’t been addressed beforehand, a customer may email a request and either never get an answer, or fail to get a timely answer, or possibly not get the answer the company’s strategy really calls for — as someone in the IT department ends up getting the email and doing the best they can to route it.

This example illustrates how a customer relationship can suffer if the details behind a simple contact form aren’t planned for and outlined. I would rephrase Mr. Glatsteins’ four points for the web:

1. The website processes fail to recognize the limitations of the existing organization. Often website applications require a human component that you don’t plan on. You have a great new publishing platform (a blog) but who writes for the blog?
2. Employees don’t know how the website can apply to their daily work. Websites can make the lives of employees easier with sales automation, information for customers, etc. but if there isn’t an internal campaign to educate your employees about your new website, then the right hand will truly not know what the left hand is doing.
3. The organization’s business systems or processes can’t support the strategy. Can your website work with your customer relationship management system? Can your sales team go electronic?
4. Website metrics are not aligned with your strategy. If you have a blog that is separate from your website, is it being tracked? Are you still pouring over raw server logs for information? How do you even measure website performance, and who is responsible for that?

These may seem simple questions for you to answer and simple problems for you to solve, and they are — if you’ve taken the time to do your homework. When you think about your website, think about it as an extension of your business and your business strategy.  Like with any business effort, good planning and a little bit of forethought can make (or break) the enterprise.