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eContent,
Commerce and Community : Get more power out of your web site
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Today almost all companies are trying to
answer and anticipate the questions relating to the care and management in
customer relationship (CRM), to increase market share and to optimize business
processes. In order to think and act in these processes, relationships to
employees, customers and partners must be optimal and flexible. Among others,
the online strategy and, more specifically, the structure of the web site which
harmonizes contents with commerce and the community plays a central role.
e-Commerce is fundamentally nothing more than information which is transferred
electronically and linked to financial transactions. The content of this
information builds the complimentary component to the transaction. Successful
e-Commerce requires a thorough management of the content as well as the
processing of the transaction.
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| Organizational
Problems with Content Management |
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Due
to the rapid expansion of the Internet, many companies have fallen
into an organizational dilemma.
As practically all mid-size and large companies are using the
Internet in some way or another and have set up Extranets, employees have been
assigned new roles. They are becoming researchers, authors, editors and
publishers as the former almost entirely paper-based Business Publishing
material is being transformed to a dynamic Multi-Media world in a stormy and
expanding Internet. Web Publishing has developed parallel to the Internet and
is technically rather simple. Thus within the company, as well as with third
party site visitors the text is often created without controls or checks from
the upper management. Electronic publications are often now left up to the
initiative of the employee.
Yet the advisory and information needs
of the customers are continuously increasing. Moreover, the clear
growth and differentiation strategy of the company to surpass the
competition increases the demand for a high quality customer relationship
which means that each client or visitor to a site is offered specific
information or products or services.
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| Conflicting
Demands from e_Commerce and Content Management |
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effective Content Management can be the solution. However, this task
is hardly trivial as several demands must be filled though they may
be diametrically opposed. It can mean that separate production of
electronic publications is possible without forcing the individual
authors to use a specific platform. The resulting content should not
be stuck in a human "bottle neck" - for example with the
Web Master - rather it should flow smoothly to the employees who are
part of the publications production process - or at least effected
by the process. For efficiency’s sake it is important to guarantee
that other employees can have full or partial re-use of the content
in other formats if necessary.
E-Commerce means more than just establishing another
distribution channel for product or service marketing in a company. It
represents a fundamentally new form of business. Entering this field requires
that all employees of all levels in the company are open and willing to learn.
Although these traits cannot be forced on the employees, they can be encouraged
if the employee is not required to learn it all in one step, rather in stages
where he is guided in the new process of e-commerce.
A Web-Site, which has been developed using a modular system is
preferable since it can lead to a timely, though gradual, introduction to the
new processes which allows for process variations.
The content preparation creates its very own business process
where the employee is confronted with different tasks. E-Commerce must be
driven by the top management of the company.
Where Content Management and E-Commerce come together
In the meantime, dynamic creation of the personalized contents
in a site rapidly gaining in importance. Such content is mostly developed using
profiles which are continually being updated based on the behavior of the
customer or site-visitor. This capability is critical for Customer Relationship
Management (CRM). The goal is to tailor information offered based on the needs
of the information receiver which is comparable to One-to-One Marketing in
commercial business.
The current trends are unmistakable. Content Management and
E-Commerce are dependent on each other. Many Websites, which originally began
with just an informative character, are now being improved and updated for
transaction processing so that owners can set up their own e-Commerce. The
logical further development of a Website is to increase its attractiveness for
the occasional and often coincidental site visitor but even more so for the
stabile business partner. Customers and business partners want to be recognized
as the individuals which they are. They can profit from an increased use of the
information when it is collated and prepared for the specific target groups.
This requires competent software solutions, which can
automatically process the information with the proper profiles.
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The Integration of the User and Formatting the
Community
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Web-site visitors tend
to belong to either one group or an other. On the one hand there
are subscribers, or customers or business partners which, depending
on the user-rights in the individual Web-site, can meet the individual’s
needs and wishes and can be used interactively (www.myPortal.com).
Often it is a question of the group of Intranet linked participant,
frequently Extranet users are also participating. On the other
hand, casual site-visitors can frequent the site. They should
not have any sort of special user rights. This includes site visitors
from Intranets and Extranets, particularly when the Web-site is
generally accessible from the Internet. In this case the regular
or occasional Surfer is meant who is addressed by the company
publications.
It should be possible to create individual profiles for all
these sorts of site-visitors. These profiles should contain characteristics
which are attained from specific visitor information or from the behavior of
the visitor gained when visiting the site. The profiles can be based on the
visitor’s special interests as he selects certain products or services
information. In this fashion, a collection of characteristics accumulates
rapidly which can be used for individual marketing which is known in marketing
circles as 1:1 Marketing. For example, visitors can, when asking for specific
travel destinations, receive information not just about the transport
possibilities to the destination and the local accommodation suggestions, but
also the special offers tailored for that individual customer - like the
sporting events or the cultural activities at a specific time of the year and
so on. Of course it goes without saying, that by using Content Management the
required contents must also be prepared in order to offer a wide variety of
possibilities which automatically match the profile of the visitor.
A further way to increase customer loyalty exists in the
setting-up of so-called Communities, which are forum like communities where Web
visitors can exchange and share information. The best known form of this
information sharing is the virtual bulletin board called Message Boards, where
the visitor can leave messages for the other visitors to the entire community.
In this way a beginner can receive answers to his questions in a certain field
from experienced visitors or internal company consultants on a certain related
Web Site.
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An important aspect of the thorough
integration of Content Management, is the central administration of the
transactions processes and the virtual community in all Web Sites which are
being run by a company (fig. 1)
Requirements for "Power" Web-site:
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Web site
Requirement
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Content
Management
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Commerce
Tx Mgmt.
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Community
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Adaptable
to (New)Processes
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Ö
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Ö
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Ö
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Evolutive
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Ö
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Ö
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Ö
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Modularity
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Ö
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Ö
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Ö
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Personalization
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Ö
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Ö
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Ö
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Central
Administration
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Ö
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Ö
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Ö
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The
majority of the administrative functions should take place automatically
and transparently, without the visitor even being aware that they
are going on.
Aside
from the part of the administration which requires the distribution and
surveillance of all accesses, is the tracing of all activities which come
together in a web-site - (i.e., transactions and information preparation).
The
usage of certain services or the behavior of each visitor should - according to
the wishes and where it make sense - be documented so that the related data can
later be used in data analysis. Thus, security aspects can be checked and
controlled at the same time that a learning relationship can be established and
built up between the company with the web site and the user.
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Where the Power
of Web Site comes from
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e-Commerce
within a company can be structured with an optimal flexibility when using the
concept of central administration combined with a distributed Content
Management (fig. 2). Further development of new business processes can also be
reached. |
Thus
a key business benefit of integrating contents and transaction-based
services is the community
building
dynamic interaction with customers, partners or employees by focussing
value on personalized content and relationship management (fig.
3). The added value is shifted from standardized trans-actional
services to relationships and information flows. This is the key
to long term success for the e-Commerce-Strategy for every company.
This
gives more power to the web site and enables companies to improve efficiency in
their communication and to better meet the demands of their customers or
employees.
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Content,
Commerce and Community |
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