Many e-business initiatives and sites have emerged across my
company. While these have served their purpose, we do need to
impose a "house style" and achieve a consistency of approach. What
should I do to get some control over standards?
Mike Portlock, Impact
This is a common problem many businesses are facing as e-business
initiatives have escalated. Lack of control over such initiatives
can be expensive and counter productive. It has been difficult to
get a balance between control and a plethora of disparate projects,
all of which have local priority.
There are two approaches I would consider. First, get control over
content - there are likely to be significant savings to justify
this. Many initiatives use the same content and acquiring and
managing this on a multiple basis is expensive and fraught with
danger. The use of an enterprise content management system will
help.
Second, find tools that allow different parts of the organisation
to share information and to personalise it. Later generations of
portal technology will help here. This enables businesses to
establish a network of portals under a common management system.
This not only reduces costs but also gives brand protection and
increases customer centricity whilst allowing individual
initiatives to proceed.
David Roberts, chief executive, Tif
You need to exercise authority and regain control before the
organisation is exposed to an unacceptable level of business
risk.
Web sites are easy to establish and frequently set up by individual
business units without fully undertaking risk or security
assessment, or considering the impact on the corporate brand. Sites
are information assets and must be controlled by a governance
policy just as with any other asset.
1. Carry out a full audit of all sites, identifying all
domain names owned using search engines
2. Determine where ownership and control lie
3. Ensure sites are defined in terms of policies -
especially those being developed externally, or owned or managed by
or on behalf of particular business units - and that this is
understood across the business
4. Interfaces are key problem areas. Establish clear roles
and responsibilities, both for internal business functions and in
terms of third-party and joint-venture boundaries
5. Be tough in your questioning of external providers.
Paul Williams, Arthur Andersen
It is important to ensure, aside from design and content standards,
that all e-business initiatives are co-ordinated under an
e-business strategy that is aligned with your corporate strategy.
There are four key standards areas that require consideration as
part of this co-ordination effort:
1. Devise design and content standards: these will provide
direction to your developers and a consistent means of managing
your brand. These standards should be consistent with other
branding standards your company uses.
Standards could be implemented in the form of a style guide,
examples of which can be found at the
Yale
Web Style Guide and the
W3C
guidelines. Compare your e-business initiatives against
these style guides to ensure your site is pitched at the right
level for your customer.
By enforcing a consistent approach to design and content you will
reduce the risk of your customers being confused by inconsistent
brand messages
2. Communicate the standards: the style guide should be
communicated to Web designers and content providers and the message
should be continually reinforced. It is surprising how many
organisations develop standards, only for them to be ignored or
left dormant on a file server
3. Monitor standards adherence: appropriate, clearly defined
approval structures should be implemented for changes in content
and design across e-business initiatives. This should help to
ensure that the standards are consistently applied, and help to
mitigate legal risks arising from errors or omissions
4. Review standards regularly: the e-business environment is
constantly changing and I would expect the design and content of
your e-business initiatives to be equally dynamic. Regular reviews
of the standards will ensure they continue to meet your
requirements, do not become out-dated and continue to be
comprehensive in their coverage.
Roger Marshall, Elite
You have identified the need for a house style and a consistent
approach. Few would disagree with this until, that is, they are
asked to change their own ways and conform to the corporate
standard. Then they will think up any number of reasons why they
should be the exception to the otherwise sensible rules.
Machiavelli had something to say about such situations. He would
probably tell you to get the new standards approved before the
opposition finds out and then with authority on your side, go in
for the kill.
As murder is outlawed, another of Machiavelli's recommendations
would be to form alliances with those in power. In today's
corporate world nothing is more powerful than the brand, and
branding of e-commerce operations is just as important as the
branding of any other product. So, if your marketing director is
not yet involved in this issue, start working on him. This is your
most important alliance. Machiavelli would definitely
approve.
Peter Boggis, vice-president, Concours Group
In the clamour to create Web sites and "brochureware", many
companies put speed above standards when it came to Web site
design. As sites proliferated throughout a multi-business unit
organisation this rapidly became an unsustainable and costly
exercise.
Now, with reflection and the benefit of hindsight new approaches
are needed. Emerging best practice from companies that have
experienced this suggests the following elements of a
solution:
1. Digitisation - requires a balance of top-down direction
and standard setting for the things that are non-negotiable - and
bottom-up innovation. One of these non-negotiable elements needs to
be the portal application software and related customisation or
personalisation tools.
Standardising on leading-edge platforms together with
personalisation tools can create a win/win of common core and
personalised facets
2. Use different parts of the multi-business unit
organisation to fulfil the role of centre of excellence for
different aspects of digitisation. For example, create one centre
of excellence for Web-enabled internal processes, another for
customer-facing Web-enabled processes and put mechanisms in place
to share best practices and lessons learned
3. Spend a day in the life of your customer. How does a
customer experience his or her interaction with your company or
business unit? If a customer expects to see a common look and feel,
then make sure that is what he or she sees.