N-GEN Communications Web-based Seminars ©NGCS

Seminar - An Overview of Communications Technologies


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Module 6 - Internet, Intranet, Extranet, e-Commerce and Web Services                                      Slide 45 of 70 _________________                                                                                  __________

                                  Functional Requirements to Place and Maintain
                                                       a Business on the WWW

                                        Business Goals Analysis

                                        Web-site Development Tasks

                                        Web-site Maintenance

                                        Measuring Success

_________________                                                                                  __________

Not every business is suited to being successful on the WWW. Merchants who are planning to move their business on to the WWW should do their home work and understand and analyze the functional requirements of placing and maintaining their business on the WWW. The following discuss the key requirements:

Business Goals Analysis - An answer is required to the question - What does a merchant (or corporation) want from migrating/setting-up a business on the WWW?. Is business goal to create or maintain a competitive edge, improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, improve employee communications, find new markets, generate new sources of revenues, improve relationships with partners, improve time to market and/or improve relationship with suppliers?

Web-site Development Tasks - Include Web-site design analysis, Web-site design - defining design and programming requirements, Web-site design - outlining schedule and costs, Web-site design - obtaining feedback from all concerned parties, Web-site development by internal or external resources and Web-site implementations. Each task requires a detailed break-down of activities, for example the web-site design analysis task will include Who is the target audience?, What role will the web-sitel perform? - Information, Education, Entertainment, Sales, Customer/Technical support, and Advertising, Who will host the web-site? and Who will maintain the web-site?

Web-site Maintenance - This will include how the web-site will be promoted?, Analyzing the web activities (hits on the web-site, What pages are read? and Which features are used? A web-site design is an interactive process. Understanding the customers behavior will help to modify the web-site.

Measuring Success - The web-site analysis has to be continually compared with the success criteria. How many hits have been translated into revenues?. Is it easier for potential consumers to navigate the web-site and find the required items and make payments? If the intent of the site was to improve employee communications has it done that or improved revenues or reduced the operational costs?