Organization Vision and Web Strategy

When we create a business or establish a company, usually we sketch out a plan and set goals in order to achieve it. On other hand, nowadays, having a vision is a must in the management of every single business, company and organization. Therefore, organizations should have a vision in order to give clear indication that the organization gives their stakeholders a feeling of importance no matter how small their contribution to the realization of the task may seem.

A solid image to the outside world will help to attract customers, suppliers, potential employees, sponsors and other stakeholder. Having a well - developed vision will be beneficial in creating confidence of external parties. So the questions how the organization can translate the tenor of this vision and deliver it to the world in a form that can interact with people outside.

From my perspective, translate organizational objectives and values into high-level management directives should come through the organization website, and Web Strategy is the important element in achieving this goal. In the same time, company or organization should have an in depth understanding of the needs of our stakeholders via establishing genuine and interactive communications with them.

So when organizations and individuals talk about Web Strategy they are talking about the organization’s approach to reflect their needs and strive towards a web presence of the highest possible standards in terms of content, delivery and integration with other communications channels, therefore the benefits of improving Web site/church to activate data integration, and the pros and cons of custom and template-based development strategies.

To develop an effective Web Strategy for the organization, we should understand the goals of the organization we drive and its stakeholders to create a vision and mission for the web strategy. We then conduct user research to align those goals with users’ needs and the online channels available. This approach results in a Web Strategy that is successful from both the business and the end-user perspectives.

Achieving company vision comes from adopting most important strategy, this strategy stems from convince potential customers to try the product or services. The tools used to generate initial leads and fans; we need to create Digital Channels such as Digital Channels:  Web Strategy and Website, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Pay per Click (PPC), Mobile and Email Marketing.



For instance, and from the website effect

• The Web Strategy supports any organization strategy, with all developments aligned with the company or organization’s key objectives and priorities. The web presence must also support and complement the organization’s IT Strategy.
• The website is the official digital image of the company therefore the website’s branding and content style should be a reflection of that image 
• The various digital marketing activities should lead to the website as the official source of information and a platform to convert visitors to leads
• The website structure and flow of content should be a reflection of the needs of our various stakeholders
• The website content management system should empower the various categories/content owners to update and edit their webpages, within preset guidelines

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4 elements within Key performance indicators and Balanced Scorecard for IT operational management

Performance indicators considered an essential important point of discussion within frame of general business management. The management of information technology (IT) departments is no different. Business unit should have concrete and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to measure IT contributions to the organization and serve as department-specific measures of performance.

To define meaningful KPI measures that align with the goals of the organization, we need to go through questions below

1. What are the business / organization measures?
2. How do these translate into ICT service measures?
3. How does a process support the ICT service measures?
4. How will collect and analyze the measure?

Traditionally, most organizations adopt the balanced scorecard method to measure operating performance. Most organizations today are challenged to take a 360 degree view of performance by concentrating on reporting, reviewing and acting upon a limited number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which impact most on organizational performance.

In this article I will explain the way that we can follow to Measure Department Key Performance Indicators by using Balanced Scorecard. WHY? Because balanced scorecard has helped many organizations to utilize intangible assets they need for future growth, and most organizations have has viewed the matter as a complement rather than a replacement for financial assessment measures.

I would add that Balanced scorecards have long been used in strategic business management to track key performance, indicators and are designed to provide a framework to manage resources.

There are four basic viewpoints to take with the KPI balanced scorecard:

• Financial perspective – tracking financial performance.
• Customer perspective – tracking customer satisfaction, attitudes, and market share goals
• Internal process perspective – covers internal operational goals needed to meet customer objectives. 
• The learning and growth or innovation perspective- intangible drivers for future success such as human capital, organizational capital, training, informational systems, etc

In Information Technology Services companies and organizations have developed and created a set of Key Performance Indicators for multiple Information Technology Services areas in order to best provide Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) metrics.  These areas may include Help Desk/User Services, Online services, Academic Technology, Cloud Computing Services, Technical Services, User Services Mobile Application Downloads, Information Technology Services Tactical Plan Counts and Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Usage

For instance, of a KPI balanced scorecard in action. A regional Telecom Company is looking to increase its profits by increasing revenue and lowering costs (financial perspective), by increasing mobile data  revenue and controlling third party services provider lease costs. So the goal is to provide the best services possible to the campus community at the lowest possible costs To achieve part of that goal, the Telecom determines to lower prices and improve services to entice more customers (customer perspective), using metrics such as satisfaction ratings and customer rankings as performance measurements. To improve their services and products, they decide to improve internet package and featuring (internal process perspective), using different services packages such as mobile data protocol, 4G LTE network that let customer to download files from the Internet up to 10 times faster than with 3G. To help improve customers’ subscription the telecom offers a stock incentive program and more training with targets for number of employees trained to help and server large number of clients and new customers.

Based on that, more balance should be achieved in how performance is viewed between:
Financial and non - financial measures
Long - term and short - term Measures

To achieve this balance organization believe that performance should be considered from four different perspectives namely

• Customer – How the organization is performing in the eyes of customers
• Internal Business Processes – How the organization is performing in the day to day processes it must carry out efficiently and effectively 
• Learning & Innovation – Performance required to ensure the long term development of the organization Shareholder – Financial Performance measures

To sum up, KPIs are a vital part of organizational management, suitable and corresponding across all organization departments. Balanced Scorecard has taken a featured location in the field of integrated strategic planning and management system. Adopting the strategy approach to KPI has created a opportunity to organizations to develop performance measures that are explicitly aligned to the corporate strategy and in support thereof.

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Tripple bottom line and organization business growth

There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game - Milton Friedman (1970)

Nowadays, most organizations or companies work to achieve one of most important goal which is reaching to sustainable growth. It’s how you go about achieving this that matters. Having a clear long-term strategy focused on maximizing profitability and sustainable growth in an increasingly complex and competitive landscape is critical for any organization.

Adopting triple bottom line approach is considered as ideal method to achieve sustainable growth in terms of positive short-term and long-term impacts on an organization’s profitability and growth as follows:

• Developing green products and services opens up new markets and increases revenues
• Increased employee engagement and retention leads to greater productivity.
• A corporate reputation for sustainability allows access to new avenues for capital
• Improved processes and supply chain management reduces costs

Triple bottom line is considered a core of sustainability strategy at any organization that plans to build financial success, environmental excellence, and social responsibility in partnership with all stakeholders. To achieve the mentioned target, organizations need to explicitly consider the economic, environmental, and social impacts of their activities (Edgeman, 1998). So adopting that, means organization in the long run could get opportunity to reduce any potential disasters or harms that could company face if it takes into consideration environmental (planet), social (people), and financial issues (profit) rather than focusing just on profit (Dyllick & Hockerts, 2002). Therefore, sustainability can drive significant business benefits within an organization and has a positive impact on organization operation process

Whether you already have a successful sustainability strategy or you are still in the throes of developing one, you need to work, improve and enhance many aspects in this module to achieve the desired goal, for instance, you should

1. Build greater resilience into supply chains
2. Building a positive enabling culture that embraces sustainability in curriculum, research and the workplace
3. Work on innovation part by introducing new design constraints that shape how key resources-energy, carbon, water, materials and waste
4. Sketch out a new process in business operations to become more efficient in terms of reducing costs and waste
5. Work to enhance your company brand image or engaging employees in a more profound way.

Control and Improvement
Maintaining control and improvement of sustainability performance is done in one of four ways


For Example, By Addressing Environmental Performance Organizations can reduce costs by

• Reducing energy and resource use, 
• Minimizing waste, 
• Improving efficiency and thereby meeting government targets for improved performance, 
• Ensuring compliance and  Avoiding or reducing unforeseen environmental risks

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Business Strategy and Customers' needs in Marketplace

The needs of customers are one of the major driver of business strategy. It is essential to understand the needs and to identify how to satisfy these needs more fully, more exactly, or more profitably than competitors. Therefore every organization or company should focus on business strategy in order to achieve this goal and beating competitors by meeting customer need. 

I would like to give you a brief about Business Strategy in order to get a clear picture about how you can run your business in the marketplace and understand customers’ needs. Business Strategy is a method or a plan that help your company to obtain a competitive advantage. It is more related with how a business competes in particular market. In simple term it can be defined as a plan that says where a company wants to go and how it envisages getting there.

From this point, it is necessary to understand the nature and scope of customers’ needs, how these needs differ between different groups or individuals, and how these needs are changing based on many certain circumstances and factors. Business Strategy is therefore market driven and likely to have very heavy involvement to marketing people. 

For instance, In KIA motors or Hyundai, there is no evidence that KIA or Hyundai defined clearly exactly how KIA/ Hyundai combination was expected to look from the customers’ point of view or how it would help KIA or Hyundai to meet customers’ needs better. In apparent competition with Toyota, KIA and Hyundai may have had a clear strategy for how the business strategy that they adopted would need customer needs. I am not doing marketing ads for mentioned companies, but I am giving only examples!
 

Provide sustainable competitive advantage.

The best business strategies are those which use the capabilities of the company to address customer needs in way which leads to sustainable competitive advantage. From my perspective, Business Strategy must describe what the basis of completion is, how this business is changing, and how the strategies take advantage of these changes, this in turn, will create a clear difference that is important to your customers, and is something your competitors cannot match. For instance, build up a brand loyalty, differentiate your product or service and continually innovate all these elements can help to establish sustainable competitive advantage.

As John Kay (1999) has pointed out, business, like people, have to go through good times and bad times. It is probably impossible to achieve competitive advantage permanently and excellent corporation that can achieve a permanent and irreducible lead is a myth.

To sum up, I would say the purpose of business strategy is to exploit the capabilities of enterprise to gain and sustain competitive advantage in serving the needs of customers in a chosen marketplace. The key factor in business strategy that plays an essential role in supporting customer needs is Social Business Strategy that turns your company into a true “social business” by adopting for instance, create more meaningful customer relationships, distribute context among your customers, Integrate Social and CRM for more consistent response and Learn how to be social.

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5 Strategies to Engage First 100 Customers

Anyone with experience with startup companies or business and have experience in sales or marketing knows how hard it can be to engage those first 100 customers and switch them to clients. Such as this step can take a great deal of groundwork and preparation, not to mention money and sweat, to locate and capture them. If those first 100 customers are not engaged or collected quickly, business failure is a distinct possibility 

So we need to know what the strategy should follow in order to achieve the goal for growing up our business.

Digital Media: Considering that the first websites are nearly 20 years old, it's odd to refer to many of these media as "new." Some marketers prefer to call these options "digital media." There's a lot of excitement about new media, since consumers are spending a lot of time online, and the media are relatively inexpensive to produce. However, doing new media properly often requires a large investment of time, talent, even money. I'll introduce the most popular forms here, and will discuss social media more next week

• Websites: A website can serve as promotion, place and even product. (Consider http://www.uaemd.net) 
• Search Engine Optimization: This is an ongoing practice to make your website more easily found and highly ranked by Google and other search engines
• Search Engine Marketing: You can also buy ads on search engines, which usually appear at the top and down the right hand side of search results. These ads are also based on keywords. Marketers usually pay per click (PPC) for these ads
• Videos: Videos will soon be as popular as photos on the Internet. They're more effective than banner ads in attracting attention and getting people to spend more time (what marketers refer to as "engagement").
• Social Networks: You're probably familiar with social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, whose primary purpose is to help people build relationships with each other. Marketers can buy different forms of advertising on these sites
• Mobile: Marketing on smartphones is perhaps the fastest growing promotional category, since there are many more phones in use than computers, and people take their phones with them everywhere

Word-of-mouth communication: word-of-mouth communication (WOM) has a significant effect on consumer purchasing behavior. Evidence indicates that WOM is often related to consumers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with previous purchasing experiences (Wilson and Peterson, 1989). Consumers also appear to engage in WOM to satisfy their personal information needs (Pincus and Waters, 1977).

Know who your competitors are: This sounds basic, but it's a mistake many business owners and salespeople make.  Find out who your competitors are, what they are offering and what their unique selling point (USP) is. This will identify the areas you need to compete in. You need to know who all your competitors are--not just the obvious ones, but the ones flying under the radar as well.

Differentiate your services or products in the market place: It's essential to give your customers good reasons to come to you rather than a rival. Your USP should tap into what customers want and it should be clear and obvious - no-one should have to ask what makes you different

Look to the future: Businesses that plan for growth are more successful than those that are happy to stay still. Keep up with developments in your sector, follow consumer trends, invest in new technology and - crucially - have a clear idea of where you want to be in one, three and five years' time.

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3 steps to build your content from context

Content marketing is considered as part of the many factors that enhance marketing tactics and strategies and a key role to fulfill marketing goals. But we should be fully aware of what the content we want to be dealt with others and achieve our marketing goals

Therefore, through effective web content management, knowing how to handel the social channel and advanced analytics, we will have the opportunity to give every customer and prospect their own ideal experience based on their individual preferences.

In the same, content marketing is not just about digital marketing, the digital dimension plays an increasing role. In recent years and due to the success of the term and the increasing awareness of marketers that relevant content is necessary and undervalued, the term content marketing is used for many purposes and tactics in the digital and social marketing context, ranging from social content and search engine optimization to even online advertising.

Starting point for creating content from context
In order to get a clear vision about how we manage the content in marketing and digital platforms we need to follow steps below and adopt it in a right form.

Strategy:
You need a strategy with goals and ways to achieve them, such as know your customers, segments and competitors in the market place. Lack of a decent strategy for years has been the major reason of failure. The best strategies are integrated, flexible and collaborative, taking into account all internal and external stakeholders.

Content marketing, as said, is part of an overall picture. Strategy is about the WHY and the HOW. What do you want to achieve, who do you have to reach to start with, how will you measure in an integrated way, what content do you need, what content do your customers need, how do you provide the necessary consistent customer experiences, how do you plan, etc.

Target your group and find out the touch point
This is part of the strategy but important enough to mention separately. You need to define and know your target groups/segments. Even if terms such as target groups may belong to the old marketing as war rhetoric, you need to know who you want to reach (and why) as part of the strategy. 

Whether you use personas, call them audiences, focus on visitors, look at individual touchpoints, etc.: you need to know what will work and want will not.
So, you need to know who they are and what they want/like, using all possible social data, digital footprints, historical interaction data (multi-channel), feedback, search behavior and whatnot. From this point we can build up our context and start feed the content that we want to.

Share your content with second or third generation
You don’t just need to know what the target groups act upon and want/like/share. You also need to know what THEY want you to know in order to share with. this can be seen when your customers or their networks share and use your content to succeed in their social circles and then become circulating among more than a client or people who they have connection with your customers

Regardless of the platform or strategy, we must rely on the content and not forget that content may be queen, but context is king in the future of marketing. We have seen brands such as Lowes and Jeep build this in the core of their in-image, in-text, display, and toolbar strategies that reap the benefits. They have taken branded content, dynamic creative, valuable information and special offers into relevant contexts where their customers can (and do) choose to engage with them.

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