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Internet and E-business Strategy

What it is:
An E-business or Internet strategy is a set of ideas, ideals, strategies, and tactics that form a foundation document for web site planning, application development, and web-based initiatives. It can address customer service goals, sales goals, user participation plans, training needs, informational goals and a variety of other strategic business components.



	Strategy Matters!
Develop your Internet strategy. Use it as a touchstone for all your projects.
	Doing so will provide a higher quality, better-focused web site -- serving both business goals and customer needs effectively and economically.

The Internet is no longer a novelty. It is not going away. Web sites and Internet connectivity are a way of doing business - or at the very least, a way of interacting with actual and potential customers.

A set of strategy documents articulates how the web will be employed as a tool for achieving communications, customer service, business and branding goals. Such a document brings stakeholders together in terms of commitment and project understanding -- developing a cross-departmental road map for future web projects and initiatives.

When you need us:
When it's time to consider for the first time, or re-consider, what you hope the web can do for your company or organization. A strategy document provides a touchstone by which to evaluate the appropriateness of content additions, new web-based products, or technology purchases.

Often times, businesses feel swamped by the technical complexity the Internet can introduce into operations and communications. It can be overwhelming to articulate new strategies for using a medium whose capacity has barely been explored. Knowing this, you realize how important it is that you harmonize your Internet strategy with your overall business, sales, communication, and customer service goals.

Vivid Think can help you do that.

What we do:
Vivid Think helps your leadership team clarify Internet goals and strategy in harmony with existing business and customer service strategies.

Depending on the scope and complexity of the organization's Internet initiatives, the tasks involved in developing an Internet strategy may include:

identification of core team of decision-makers and stakeholders;
facilitating discovery and brainstorming sessions to articulate and prioritize core business competencies, business goals, sales goals, characteristics of target customers, customer service philosophy, and communications goals;
drafting preliminary documents for comment and sign-off;
drafting of final Internet strategy document.

The Internet can be a very powerful tool in reducing costs, communicating messages, and providing "self service" customer service. In order for it to serve your needs effectively and efficiently, you need to articulate a clear Internet strategy (along with tactics and actionable tasks) that can guide the use of the web in the service of broader business and customer service goals.

How it helps:

Keeps your team on track: Articulating strategies in an explicit way creates a "constitution" or "foundation document" for all Internet-related projects and initiatives. The document drawn up as a formal Internet strategy serves as a focal point for the planning and development of new web-based projects. It brings together the energies of major stakeholders, formulates a common ground for moving forward, and creates a document that can serve as a touchstone for assessing the relevance of new web initiatives.

Keeps your web content on target: Without an explicitly stated strategy, web sites can become wide-ranging tangles of "everything we discovered we could do" using web-based technologies. Site unity is lost; branding focus is diffused; customer experience is fragmented; a great deal of money is wasted.

Tasks & Deliverables:
Developing an Internet strategy will vary from organization to organization. It involves a thoughtful process, not just a template to fill in. The final product will be a customized document (or set of documents) that features your business, your goals, and your customers and communicates clearly to the groups who will be using the document(s) as reference.