The most successful e-business implementations excel, not
just by being great in one area, but by being good in all areas and great in some areas.
Critical E-Business
Success Factors
- Clear
business vision and measurable goals
- A
marketing plan that drives your campaigns and programs
- Scalable
and diversified advertising channels
- A
technology framework that is secure, reliable, extensible and agile
- Brand
growth, management and evolution
- Customer
support
- Alignment
of enterprise activities with vision and strategy
On the Front-lines of
Business Development in an Interactive Agency
In the past 30 days, I received the following calls from
prospective Pop Art clients:
Company 1 asks: We need you to
“redesign” our front-end graphics.
Company 2 asks: We need you to “rebuild”
our e-commerce back-end.
Company 3 asks: We need you to do
some “online advertising” for us.
The problem with all three of these examples is that the
customer is seeking a specific service rather than a holistic solution.
Risks of Point Solutions to Both the Client
and the Agency
- The
agency delivers a great service, but it is optimized for the point
solution the client has requested rather than the customer’s holistic
needs.
- It is
difficult and expensive for the agency to get up to speed on the company’s
holistic needs if the agency is working in only one functional area. Success
in a given functional area will be limited if silos prevent collaboration
with other functional areas.
- The
client is unbundling the agency’s overall solution into specific services.
This disrupts the agency’s methodology and erodes its value proposition.
This also draws a lopsided use of resources from the agency, increasing
project costs.
- The
client is taking total responsibility for strategy, and relegating the agency to
a tactical implementation role. This makes the projects less rewarding for
agency team members and doesn’t give the agency a chance to show its business smarts.
There are times when it might make sense for both the client
and the agency to engage in a purely tactical project designed for a point
solution. However, in those situations, the client and agency should be
conscious of the above risks and take specific steps to mitigate them.
Tips for Successful
Relationships with an Interactive Solutions Agency
E-business
projects are not primarily about graphic design or software development or
advertising. While all of those are critical disciplines, they are the
last factors to which you need to pay attention!
- First
think Strategy, then think Planning, then think Implementation. If you
want to be agile, the agency working on implementation must also be
involved with business strategy and planning; otherwise, it becomes too
hard to switch directions. Furthermore, you don’t want to play the game of
“Telephone” whereby strategic intent is watered down and misconstrued
because the people implementing the strategy weren’t able to interact
directly with the strategic leaders.
- E-business
is incredibly cross-disciplinary. The key to success is culture more than
technology. The job of the client executive is creating stakeholder
alignment and a culture where people working on the project are working
together effectively and feeling that they are having a meaningful impact
on the business.
- Understand
what motivates your agency and the people who work there. Make sure your
agency understands your company and your motivations. Be willing to
compromise to establish a partnership that maximizes the total rewards of
the relationship.
- Very
few agencies are good at everything. Understand what services your agency
wants to provide and what additional services they are willing to provide.
Understand your agencies strengths and weaknesses. If you have multiple
agencies, make sure that they know their roles, and that they are
collaborating and playing well together.
Pop Art’s Holistic
Approach to E-Business:
1) We
start with a broad assessment. We love reading business plans and marketing
plans; we also love helping customers to create those documents if they don’t already
exist.
2) We
explore and document internal stakeholder needs. What is the sales team seeking
from the e-commerce solution? What do the product managers want? What does IT
want? What does Operations want? After a couple group sessions, we
typically design a survey and do brief 1:1 interviews with at least the top 10
stakeholders. Often this produces unique insights into the business. For
example, the operations team may be aware of a valuable new market opportunity
that was not previously presented to us. We then share our findings with our
key stakeholders, and they have us present them back to their broader teams
where appropriate.
3) We
explore and document the needs of our customer’s customers. Through segmented focus
groups, surveys and 1:1 interviews with customers we are able to validate the
business case and gain valuable insight into the psychology and demographics of
the target audience. This also helps us produce meaningful customer
interactions when we implement the e-business system.
4) We
examine research, competitive analysis, 3rd party solutions and
industry trends and best practices to present our clients with knowledge and to
help them finalize their goals and implementation plans. This allows us to
sign-up for strategies and goals where we feel ownership and ability to
guarantee our client’s success.
5) Armed
with proper information about the business case, we adapt Pop Art process to
the client’s needs and present the client with implementation plans and choices
so that the client can make optimal decisions for their business based upon
their preferences for balancing costs, assurance, time-to-market and total
return.
Taking a holistic approach requires extra effort at the
start of the project. However, once you try it, you’ll never go back. Point
solutions are simply too risky, too expensive and not very fun. Holistic
approaches will lead to better alignment within your organization and its
markets while producing maximum ROI and smooth sailing for all of those
involved.
Feel encouraged to post comments regarding challenges and successes you have experienced when taking a holistic approach.