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Internet business strategy - be absolutely clear where you are going

The Commercial Benefits of the Internet and WWW for SMEs

Are you trying to increase productivity and efficiency and eager to wring more profits out of streamlined operations?

Do you understand that fast change is the order of the day and that the internet is a day to day part of future strategy?

To have an effective internet business strategy you must have clear internet business advice that helps you to:

• Be absolutely clear where you are going

• Understand all your current business issues

• Know how to achieve your aims

Don't confuse strategic and business plans. Strategy is about seeing the big picture. A strategic plan for the internet is, therefore, a very short document - but it is a document. A strategic internet plan takes the organisation's philosophy, culture and values; it's challenges with regard to the competition and things that will require CHANGE such as:

• New skills

• New technology

• New products

• New investments

• Communication

and then sets out the key vision, missions, objectives, strategies, tactics and how to communicate them to everyone in order to meet those challenges.

So why do you need to think strategically about your organisation's internet business direction and future plans?

If there is no strategic plan, you will be at risk of:

• Missed opportunities

• Poor investment plans

• Lack of ownership by the staff

• Inflexibility when faced with change

A good internet strategic plan creates clarity of purpose and common understanding and it is a framework for detailed planning; it gives your organisation a focus on the strategic developments it should be pursuing and a view of the future towards which it is moving.

Developing a good strategic internet plan requires a realistic and critical review of past performance by the owners and managers of a business. Preparation requires:

• A 3 to 5 year perspective

• Involvement of key staff

• A SWOT analysis

• Separation from the 'day to day' - it really MUST be strategic!

Good internet strategic planning pays for itself many times over. It ensures that your company is not just overtaken by events, because you have looked to possible futures and predicted them and then set out possible responses.

Of course it is no guarantee and but then again it certainly isn't something you do and then forget or ignore - what's the point of that?

It does inform decision making, it does need updating and it does act as an insurance policy to prevent your business world collapsing around you and you are more likely to be "ahead of the game and more likely to know how to respond to change as it occurs.

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