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Integrating Web Sites With Company Operations

Including sales, marketing, ordering,
financials, and customer service.

Building a plain vanilla informational web site (that doesn't interact with customers or employees) is relatively easy. There may be some sophisticated programming involved in how the content is updated, and plenty of thinking about visitors and usability, but basically it is still brochure-ware.

Sites that are meant to do business online are a whole different animal. Most web architects spend no more than an hour getting to know your business. At Hastings we take a little more time. Some of today's viable business models have taken hundreds of years to develop. If your business works, then it is our business to make a web site that works with it – not to put up a hasty piece of work that gets the tail wagging the dog. A site can smoothly integrate, or it can be a nightmare. We ask a lot of pretty simple questions before building, such as:

  • Who can we route email to? It's better to have a choice of email contacts on the "Contact" page – rather than just one email address, dumping all customer requests on one overburdened employee.

  • What data format would your fulfillment department like to get orders in?

  • Do your margins and price points justify diverting web visitors to a toll-free order line? If so – for all products, or only certain ones? We need to know if and where on the site to feature your 800 number. Possibly it will only go on pages with high-ticket items.

  • Will your marketing people have easy access to the webmaster? If not, they need to be able to change content by themselves.

  • How fast do your prices fluctuate? Do your marketing people need full control of data uploads?

  • Do your major customers and suppliers already have their own electronic trading systems in place? If so, we may be able to give them familiar interfaces.

If you want a web site that works with your company, please check the rest of our web site (it's small), and drop us a line.



Contact us at info@hastingsresearch.com



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