These are tough times for everyone in every business sector. It’s no good talking about sweating your assets, these days everything is sweating.
In the past, the CIO lived in a world where money was no object if the projects they delivered were differentiating the business. Now, IT projects are often about little more than information and how it is transferred from one potential customer to another. Remember the top of the Laffer curve? The chart that proves how increasing taxes does not increase tax revenue beyond a certain point – well we have hit the top of the curve for IT spending right now.
Projecting your brand on the web is now critical, but it’s hard to demonstrate an immediate return on that IT spend, so project budgets are reduced. There are a couple of things that can be done. You can turn to your existing IT suppliers and ask them explicitly for ideas on how you can do more with the existing budget. How could you deliver to the same clients more innovatively? You could also think of how the human factor has become a major differentiator in a world dominated by the automated. A chat line on your website linked to a knowledgeable person can be a real benefit and can drive conversion rates.
In the offline world I go to a wine store and ask the staff about the wine I am buying because I’d rather not just take pot luck buying something random in the supermarket, and I value their judgement. That kind of personal expertise can keep me returning time and again to a retail store – it’s exactly the same online. Now, just imagine if some of the supermarket websites could offer that kind of personal advisory service?
No comments:
Post a Comment