Apr 6, 2009 0
From Web Sites, to Digital Solutions
Web sites are easy
When I start a new project, particularly with a new customer, I pay close attention to how they use the term web site. Customers arrive wanting a web site. They walk out with a digital solution. The web site is the easy bit. The hard part is defining, creating and rolling out a digital solution specifically for them.
So what is a digital solution? For me, its a dynamic map that continually adapts as you journey through a project. A bit like Harry Potter’s Marauders Map. Sometimes it actually feels like we’re using the map to guide our customers through the project pitfalls but without the protection of the invisibility cloak. So to be clear, a digital solution takes a customer from what they want to what they need. And for me, this is the key differentiator between happy and unhappy customers.
Now people have been creating, redeveloping, re-skinning web sites for over 20 years. Once you find the right people, they can do that until the cows come home. Building web sites is known technical challenge. But executing somebody else’s (business) vision, well that’s a people thing. It requires a clear strategy, with input from multi sources, to increase its likelihood for success. So let’s take the building of web sites out of the picture, the execution, and step upstream into the strategy, and see what happens there.
