The second way your website can help your business is it can help you save more money if you use your website to make your business operations more efficient and cost-effective. What kind of business operations? Tasks such as:
- managing your website
- project management
- document management
- sales assistance (CRM)
Really? All that? Yes, all that! Your website can be hosted on a powerful webserver that is perfectly capable of performing as a central computer for everyone in your business. You can connect to all your resources via the internet and access them from any internet connection anywhere—whether from home, during travel, and of course in the office.
There is one serious downside to this scenario, and that’s if you lose internet connectivity when you most need it. However, you could even more easily lose access to your own data on local computers through any number of common problems. Many (too many!) businesses have absolutely no data backup of any kind. Many businesses have no UPSs (uninterruptible power supply) to depend on when the power goes out. With any sort of disaster (even a minor one) your precious data is toast: fire, theft, flood, accidents could destroy your un-backed up data.
Web servers, on the other hand, are nowhere you are, and that’s a good thing. They are very much someplace else far away, so even if your whole office building burned to the ground, your data would be safe. Insurance will replace computers and equipment, but it can’t replace lost sales and financial data or those important engineering specs! Web servers are backed up on a regular basis. Your host company probably guarantees 99% or higher uptime (if they don’t, find a company that does). Your server’s operating system, software, and features are automatically patched and upgraded by your host provider. You are responsible for any software you install and maintain on the server, but that’s still quite a bargain.
Managing Your Website
Many folks, I’ve found, are still under the impression that it takes a technical genius to create, manage, or modify a website. And that technical genius is expensive! But it just ain’t so. Having somebody who’s good with “internet stuff” to help you get up and running will probably be needed, but even then sometimes that’s not the case. What is true is that the choices you must make in this area are complex and difficult (sorry, but I’m not going to make it seem easy when it’s not). I plan on doing some posts specifically about this decision in the future.
One of your choices is to use what’s known as a content management system, or CMS. A CMS allows you to create and manage your website content yourself to a great extent. Some CMSs can do multiple duty as document or knowledge management systems, as well (see below). My blog, which you are reading now, uses a CMS called WordPress. The way CMSs work is that the software is installed on your web server and you administer it via the web. You log in securely with a username and password to an administrative center. From there, you can manage all aspects about your site. Best of all, you can do it yourself (or delegate the work to others) and you don’t have to pay exorbitant maintenance fees. Keep in mind that paying someone to set it up for you could cost more than an older-style static website, but you will recoup that extra up-front cost in short order.
You now have the freedom to manage your website in response to the market, to position yourself effectively against your competition, to service your customers in a timely manner, and to use your website as a proactive, business-positive driving force. Your website can become one of the most valuable weapons in your arsenal, making and saving money, but only if you have control over it.
Project Management
When it comes to managing project work, Microsoft Project is definitely king of the hill. But it isn’t the best solution for all types of projects. And if you want to web-ify your project work, Project Server has to operate with other expensive server products from Microsoft. There are an amazing number of web-based project management solutions out there. For my day job I teach computer classes and I teach a lot of Microsoft Project. One thing I’m always surprised at is how few people really understand the project management process. You don’t have to do it according to the PMI (though they probably think you do!), but you need have an understanding of project planning, implementation, and management. You need to know this stuff before any software will help you. People waste a lot of time and money with inefficient project management. Learn it and do it to save significant amounts of money.
Document Management
Web-based document management can have workflow and permissions built into it. Probably the big daddy in this area is Plone. Plone is also a full-on CMS and portal. It’s huge. Setting it up and configuring it is not for the weak. A good book helps. Plone is only one of many open source document management solutions. If you want to forgo the idea of having discreet documents altogether (such as Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets) you can even use a wiki. Web-ifying everything generally tends to save money by providing constant and ubiquitous access to your information, which saves time, and time is money.
Sales Assistance (CRM)
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. The idea is that at any point of contact between a customer and your company, that customer experiences 360 degrees of knowledge, care, and service. A customer’s interaction history is available to any service representative, so that customer never has to repeat their story or remember with whom they last spoke. CRM software keeps your sales staff in the know by automating a lot of the sales process and keeping the sales pipeline flowing. From what I can see, the open source leader in this space is SugarCRM. SugarCRM is an example open source software that isn’t free. There are a few others in this space. Getting a handle on your sales process, knowing what’s coming up, knowing what’s in the pipeline, having a goldmine of client information—and having it on the web—saves you a lot of money.
The Web vs. Your Website
There are many more ways the web in general can be used to help you run your business more efficiently, but what I’m trying to focus on here specifically is software that runs on your webserver, not services which are available through the web. Your web server, the hosting you pay for, and your website could potentially save your business a lot of money while at the same time help open up new opportunities that exist only because of the web.
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