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Two sides to an Internet presence |
"An Internet Presence
is not just HAVING
a Web site, but USING it "
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Two sides to an Internet presence |
| An Internet presence - Why? | ...continued | |
| The Internet explosion that we see today is
the realisation of the information society, which we have been discussing
for the past 15 years at least. What we are witnessing is nothing less
than a major technological choice - a huge majority of individuals and
large companies are putting their Darwinist bets on this heterogeneous
grouping of technologies, thus transforming themselves into an unstoppable
agent of change. The common characteristic of these technologies is that
they all plug into the Internet Protocol.
The change from an industrial society into an informational society is comparable to the impact of the industrial revolution, during which society changed from a decentralised feudal society into a centralised industrial economy. But this is as long as the analogy goes - contrary to the industrial revolution, the informational revolution will impose itself with a speed that will make us breathless - we, the Europeans are already lagging behind... An Internet presence - How? The arrival of the information society will not have the same impact on all industries, and certainly not in the same time frame. Neither does it have the same impact on large as on small companies. A hypothesis could be that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) that are implementing a global presence will be the real winners - another could be that any company with a product that can be digitalized will have good chance of going world-wide fast.
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For large companies there is not much choice:
they must have an Internet presence - even if it only creates costs in
the beginning. The potential losses in terms of corporate and brand image
can be substantial if a multinational decided against a Web presence -
furthermore the relative costs are rather limited for a large concern that
already has an important communications' budget. For these companies, the
question is not how much to spend on a Web site, rather it is a matter
of how to best integrate the Internet revolution into their marketing strategy
and their global strategy.
At the SME level, the questions when and how become real concerns that must be dealt with. Generally the question of when to have an Internet presence has a fairly straight ahead answer: as soon as our budget and cash flow allows us to invest - an Internet presence is an investment, and not a cost of communication. The question of how is more complex - and the answer will depend in each case on competitors, type of product, degree of internationalisation, and internal competencies. Once these factors are taken into consideration, a suitable Internet strategy can be decided upon, which will ensure that the company benefits to a maximum of new opportunities, access to new clients, information acquisition and corporate image, made possible by the Internet. Anders Hjorth |
© Copyright Anders Hjorth, 1997
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but always state
Anders Hjorth and Innovell.com as the source
