Bal-Tech, Inc.- Web Site Development

Your customers are on-line. Where are you?

And your competitors all have websites.

So what?

As in the rest of life, 'keeping up with the Jones' is not necessarily a strategy for success. Unless you do all your business via the internet, you don't need a website - yet. However, the novelty has worn off and it's no longer enough to have a couple of pages filled with glitzy images, impressive mission and vision statements, and marketing slogans. Businesses and customers are demanding more: more usable information, easier navigation, faster access to what they want to see.

Answer the following questions and determine whether you really need to have an 'internet presence', and if so, how extensive it really needs to be. (Don't worry - you won't be graded, and the form won't be seen by anyone but you).

1. Think about your customers - who buys the services or products you sell? Now ask yourself - are they likely to use the internet at work or at home?	Yes No
2. Think about your product or services - who needs them? Everyone in the world? Or a relatively small number of customers in well defined industries/activities?	Everyone Few
3. Think about how where your customers live and work, and how far from you that is. Are your customers local (local meaning within the same state/province, or within a few hundred miles)?	Everywhere Local
4. Are your products/services hard to find, or available only in certain, limited places (like ordering direct from you)?	Limited Abundant
5. How do your customers find you? Does your company invest heavily in advertising? Or do customers come in just by looking you up in the phone book?	Advertise No Ads
6. Do your customers have a strong brand loyalty, and will buy your services or products because your company makes them? Or do they shop around, look for the best price or most 'bang for the buck' ?	Shoppers Loyal
7. Do you provide customers or clients with the same information repeatedly? Do you have a customer service line that handles the same questions over and over, day in and day out?	Yes No
8. Does your company have offices in different cities, or even different countries?	Yes No
9. Is there 'perishable' data (data that changes relatively often, like inventory) that your offices need to share regularly?	Yes No
10. Do you or your employees spend a great deal of time phoning and faxing data from the same source (same database, same report, etc.) between offices? Do you have regular reports that need to be read and used by multiple people in multiple, widely seperated locations?	Yes No

How Did You Do? Add up the number of items you checked off in the first ('Yes') boxes. This is your 'score'.
Score	What It Means
1 - 2	At this point, neither an internet web site or an intranet will do much for you. If you feel you must have something out there, stick with one page telling who you are and how you can be contacted.
3 - 5	Your company can benefit from an internet web site (to bring in more business, to provide answers to routine inquiries, etc.) - or you may benefit from a small intranet so employees, executives, etc. in different locations can access the same resources easily. There's no need to go overboard and spend a lot of time and energy building a huge site.
6 - 8	Your company should seriously consider how the internet can help you maximize your business opportunities.
More	If you're not on the Web already - you're missing some valuable opportunities!

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