The role of an organization’s website has evolved tremendously over the last ten years. It is now not just a billboard, but an integral part of your strategy. It plays the role of an advertiser, educator, communicator, and even salesperson. With its expanded organizational presence, it has taken on more of the characteristics of a person than an object.
New Roles
Just like when creating a new employee position, you need to clearly define the role they are to take inside the organization. The website has a similar requirement. You do not need to overbuy/overbuild just as you would not need an overqualified employee. You have greater flexibility with your website to build it exactly as your requirements demand.
As an expenditure, it has moved from being a one-time capital expenditure to a monthly investment that can be managed and updated with market conditions. Our first website was created over ten years ago – and it served us well for what we needed – then. This week’s new launch is our third change in the last four years.
We now have increased costs through continuous monitoring and improvement. But when you apply all our previous employee and resource costs (people, time, education, materials, travel, etc.) against this monthly website investment – it’s no contest.
Our website as an employee is cheaper, better, and vacation free!
New Focus
Whether you are looking for our Workday, DPAS, or Government capabilities, we want our website to deliver a clear, concise, and informative message. We took care to train (or in case of a website, program) this new employee to provide what is expected and desired, not something cute or magical. We want our visitors to get their questions answered with clear options for their appropriate next steps.
Of course, a website doesn’t completely replace people; it certainly can deliver some tasks in a more informative and efficient manner. It also can learn and change as new information demands – with greater ease than we faced with this technology in the past.
We view the website as a valuable employee that requires the same investment and care that a person needs. Used correctly, it can do a great deal of work much more efficiently – and with better results.
While we’re proud of our newest employee, we’re still working through the standard issues (bugs) that they bring with them. But like all of us, our faults are part of us. And as with any challenges, we get the opportunity to improve. Please feel free to provide us any comments or suggestions on how we are doing.
