Managing Multiple Websites

When we begin to examine the needs of a company's website, we have to be clear about which facet of a website we're talking about. In reality, most company "websites" are actually a collection of separate websites that share a common look and feel. For example, a company might have a public website, an intranet and a vendor extranet. Each of these may themselves consist of sub websites. For example, a banking site will inevitably have a public site and an online banking site where customers make their online transactions. While the two sites are, in a sense, one site (from the user's perspective), they are actually two entirely different sites built and maintained by different companies and hosted on different servers. The same could be said of an intranet that utilizes an external web-based application within the HR section for employees to access their benefits information. Lumping these sites all together under the term "website" causes a great deal of miscommunication between IT and marketing departments, because the term fails to distinguish them.

If we can limit our primary communication to the public website, I would suggest that while the IT guy should always help evaluate a technology choice, the needs analysis pertaining to such a choice should be weighted far more heavily to the day-to-day marketing goals and objectives of the site as opposed to other behind-the-scenes technology requirements. If we can limit a conversation to this aspect of a company's website I would boldly venture to say that our particular technology, process, capabilities, terms, and hosting environment, should have no problem whatsoever passing muster with an IT professional.   next >