Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

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Web Self Service - trend in 2009?

10-Jan-2009

Tags: Digital and Media Asset Management, Document Management (ECM), Enterprise Search, Portals and Content Integration, Web Analytics, Web Content Management, Building Business Case, Implementation, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Retail

Customer-driven, web self-service will surely become a dominant theme for 2009.

You see, as money moves away from bricks and mortar stores, investment moves similarly to the online experience. And this trend to the web is just as true in non-profit sectors as it is in retail. In downturns, more people head to higher education, as governments continue their move to e-government practices and everyone looks for ways to reduce costs. Getting the customer to serve themselves rather than involving costly manual processes should be a no brainer.

Yet such projects typically involve WCM, Search, and ECM technologies and increasingly also Analytic and DAM tools too. But above all: Enterprise Portals -- where one of our evaluation scenarios is "Self-service Portal."

None of these technologies are simple to procure, develop, implement, or run. And if you get things wrong, then self service and automation can backfire, destroying customer loyalty, and boosting exception-handling costs, rather than reducing expenses.

Nevertheless, many business cases in 2009 will focus on self-service -- often as a knee jerk reaction, sometimes as part of a longer-term, planned strategy. If you or your company are considering such a project, then we hope you will make full use of CMS Watch's services to help make that task as simple and as cost-effective as possible, and to lower the risk of failure.

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