Manage a Two-Pronged Web Business Environment

Managing a website is an enormous job. From creating, updating and deleting content to keep it current to deploying applications and then maintaining them after they go live - web-related careers have become the hottest commodity on the job market today. But once you take one of those fantastic web-related jobs, how do you get your arms around the day to day?

Ownership
So who really "owns" the company website(s)? Is it the business or IT? A question that has plagued companies since the beginning. Here's a little secret that most (good) information technology/e-business professionals will tell you - IT simply supports the web. If your business strategy (including your corporate goals, mission, vision, strategic intents) isn't driving your website, you are failing at e-business. Ouch - painful isn't it? That's why partnerships are so important.

Partnering Up
If your organization has your website split into several different segments, you have a model similar to about 80% of the rest of the world. Typically, the struggle for ownership is between IT and corporate relations/marketing communications. In order to accommodate both groups, website "duties" are often split up between the two organizations with the communications group being responsible for site content, look and feel, and navigation and IT being responsible for application development and deployment. The result? Total chaos. Oftentimes, things are deployed from both sides with little or no communication. There is duplicative work, shoddy integration, and missed cues. Websites oftentimes lose the overall e-business vision and instead of the two groups working together toward accomplishing a corporate goal, they end up vying for control.

The web is growing so fast and in order to accommodate it, we've all had to add more staff. More staff equals more hands in the pot. When you've got 30 people actively working on web-based projects, how do you keep control as well as keep everyone on course? Let's take a look at the three most common problems and some suggested solutions.