Beyond Implementation

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Years ago, I had a career-broadening experience as the WebTrends admin and analyst for a large company. I was quite literally a one-woman show. We had WebTrends implemented, and while our software needed some tweaking, we were actually getting far more data already than we honestly knew what to do with. My internal clients weren’t sure how they could turn that data into action, and my managers didn’t see how visits and page views could tell us anything useful beyond the fact that the web servers were up and running. There were also many doubts about the validity of the data. I had hit the second hurdle that many of our clients have difficulty overcoming after a year or two of owning our product — “We’ve got it implemented, now what do we do with it? Can we trust the numbers? How do we manage this over the long term and make it valuable to the enterprise?”

Truthfully, I suspect this is the point in the customer life cycle where many of our clients slip away to our competitors (and vice-versa). After having invested time and resources into implementing their web analytics solution, they still aren’t reaping the full value of their investment. What they need is far beyond simple implementation, even a very good one; what they need is a plan for using the data they have to drive continuous improvement and to optimize their web site as a marketing channel. What they need is help in weaving data-driven decision making into the very fabric of their organization and fostering a culture of continuous improvement powered by data. That is a much taller order than simply installing some software or adding some JavaScript to a web page, but the impacts can extend far beyond the web channel.

Over the next few months, I will be returning to this topic again and again in a series of blog posts that discuss the challenges of becoming a more data-driven organization–including things like validating data accuracy and interpreting WebTrends reports correctly–techniques for overcoming those barriers, and best practices to help your organization move beyond that second hurdle.

I’m hoping these will be bi-weekly blog posts, at the least, and I hope you will all join the discussion.

  • Nick Potter

    I had to laugh at this as this is where I personally believe my company is now. In fact the questions you ask at the end of the first paragraph are the ones we are asking ourselves today.

    Most of our businesses standardised on WebTrends because they were told to by head office. They don’t necessarily have a lot of experience in web analytics and the vast majority of its use is currently just reporting, rather than any analysis. I agree wholeheartedly that one of the biggest challenges is then moving from that lack-of-knowledge reporting-only mind set, to one where web analytics data is integrated within an organisation, analysis is performed, not just reporting, and action taken on the results.

    However, I think this is often where a vendor needs to step up to the plate and become a true partner rather than a company just selling a solution/tool. To partially quote Frank Zappa “Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom.” Just reporting analytics data is the equivalent of the information. To get the knowledge and finally the wisdom takes effort and often requires outside assistance. Web analytics vendors may know their tools inside-out, but without a pro-active consulting team assisting and providing direction/recommendations its going to be a slow (and long) uphill climb for a vendor’s clients, or as you say, they will look elsewhere.

  • http://www.webtrends.com April Moore

    That’s an excellent observation, Nick. And, of course, that is one of the roles our business consultants play, although not all our customers desire those types of services. One of the challenges I have encountered as an external consultant, especially when working with larger organizations, is simply getting enough time scheduled with the client team to develop a true strategy. Issues of cost aside, there is still a very real time commitment from both sides that can itself present a barrier to developing a truly customized solution, let alone a real partnership.

    Beyond assigning consultants to our client engagements who already have experience in the particular vertical and know the best practices, what specific topics can we address for our clients that will help them move to the next level? And should this information be included as part of our deliverables whenever we implement our product for a new customer? I’d be most happy to hear your suggestions.

    Thanks for commenting, Nick.

  • http://blog.webtrends.com Debra Paynter

    Such a timely topic April. I have two enterprise clients that have recently leaped over this roadblock and have opted in to own their data and own the solution. It’s so very exciting to see and engage in. Every conversation is now about strategy development, implementation, and how the data is there to work for them.

    I am very excited with your first post and look forward to more of what you have to offer on the subject.