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Catch A Falling Knife?: Strategic Thinking About the Web for Mid-Market Executives

by Steve King

139 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0373; ISBN 1-55369-560-7; US$18.00, C$27.72, EUR18.10, £12.50

A guide for mid-market executives developing Web strategies for their business.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book This book is intended to be a quick read for mid-market executives who have been struggling with figuring out how the Web might impact their business, and some valuable insight into what they ought to do about it. Written based on extensive experience in the development and implementation of transactional Web sites for mid-market companies since 1998, the book focuses on using the Web as a marketing channel and reinforces the notion that the Web is most effectively viewed as a communication medium and NOT as a technology. There is an abundance of specific and very useful guidance to thinking through a Web strategy based on understanding customers, combined with a de-mystification of informaion technology in general. An easy and enjoyable read, the book provides a straightforward and logical rationale for the roles of IT and marketing relative to the develoment of Web sites, examples of successful sites, and some very useful tips and advice for those embarking on their first (or second) commercial Web development effort.

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About the Author Steve has over 30 years of computer industry experience in sales and marketing, software engineering, product development and professional services and market experience in ERP, (SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft), Data Warehouse, Internet, Workflow, Employee Self-Service and Operating System tools. Steve also has extensive product management expereience with MVS, Unix, NT Windows adn OS/2 platforms. Steve founded two software start-ups and successfully raised over $20M in venture capital. Steve has held various executive management roles in the development and delivery of information technology for Whittman-Hart, Axis Consulting International, Virtual Integration Technology, WorkSmart! Technologies, Memorex, The Cambridge Systems Group, and IBM. Steve attended the University of California at Berkeley.

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Sample Excerpts

"As we have done this work, what continues to strike us is how often the most important element in the development of successful Web sites is overlooked or ignored. That element is strategy. Most companies go about the business of creating a Web site without an understanding or agreement about what it is that they want to do on the Web, or what result they want to produce. As a result, most Web sites are brochure-ware, and most Web sites were driven by the need to have a Web presence of some kind without any apparent thought to integrating the site with a marketing plan or an overarching business strategy. These sites don't do anything and they don't create value, either for the customer or the business."

"During the last two years, every CEO we know has found himself in the frightening position of having to approve large sums of money to be spent on Web initiatives that he doesn't understand and probably doesn't trust. Not only have those CEOs' been forced to commit funding to create something that they didn't understand, those initiatives were going to be stewarded by the IT department. The history of ROI from IT investment is not encouraging."

"Right now, most companies we know view the Web first and foremost as a technology, and not as a marketing channel. As a result, the knee-jerk response has been to assign the primary responsibility for the development of "Web-based" applications to their IT departments. This is a problem. What is actually required to drive successful entry into "digital" markets is a large dose of strategy, innovation and marketing instinct, and a small dose of IT. The Internet is a new medium that has never been used before for the purposes that you are intending. What you are doing will be done without the benefit of experience or hindsight. No one knows how to do this right yet, because no one has done it before. During the period between 1999 and 2001, "expert" consultants have been learning how to create Web strategies and Web sites that work. And, they have been learning at the expense of companies like yours. It's no wonder you are apprehensive; you should be.

"Our intent is not to castigate your CIO. He or she is undoubtedly highly skilled and talented and knows a lot about the business of getting IT systems built and implemented. The problem with IT is that success depends less upon your CIO's skills and knowledge than upon the complete adoption of technology across your enterprise, the degree to which your systems integrate with one another, and the behaviors of the people within your organization who use IT systems within the context of their daily job performance. Most often, people fail to adopt new technologies and don't use the systems as they were intended. On the Web, this problem extends to your customers and suppliers, whose behaviors you will now have to depend upon to extract the result you desire from your Web site. You can see the beginning of a problem here. As we will explore at length, the key to building successful Web sites, is to understand your customers and their probable behaviors on the Web."

"Your Web site is your new marketing channel. It will soon become as critical to your business as all of your existing marketing channels are today. Developing it will require innovative thinking and deep skills in retail sales and marketing. Managing it to market leadership will challenge your best strategic thought leaders. This has nothing to do with IT."

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Catalogue Information

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