The Benefits Of A Web Site Administrator

The Internet is the perfect tool to improve access to information. All that is needed is someone at the company with vision to see the potential. Most businesses operate with a disseminated business model, meaning that critical information is scattered throughout the organization. Information infrastructure is usually based on a collection of individual personal computers. Each computer is an island. So the company is based on a collection of individual islands of information.

This traditional business model has served us well for the past 30 years. The nature of the computer business has reinforced this business model. We grew up believing that individual personal computers running Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Office was the best way to run a business. It's mostly because there hasn't been any strong alternative way of doing business. Only companies with super-deep pockets could afford a centralized mainframe computer. So the decentralized, PC business model become the standard of information technology.

Then came the Internet. The Internet is a way to connect computers together. We see this mostly as web sites. While Web sites are neat, they are no match for the true power of the medium. When you stop looking at the Internet as a collection of web sites and start looking at it as the operating system of the future, you begin to see what it really can do.

Most companies FEEL they cannot afford to take the risk of running the company on the Internet. Questions abound, such as what if the Internet goes down? What if someone sees our information? The ironic thing is people rely COMPLETELY on email and never give these items a thought. Does the threat of the Internet going down cause you to consider going back to snail mail?

Of course it doesn't. The Internet going down is no factor with email. The Internet will go down. It's a given. It will also come back up. That's a given too. When it does go down everyone scrambles and no one is comfortable until it is back up.

Not using the Internet to assist in running your company makes no more sense than not using email. It's a tool. If the Internet goes down, which is very seldom, you wait for it to come back up. Would you be more comfortable having your computer crash? Or your network catch a virus? Just like email, the benefits of running your company this way are so overwhelming it makes no sense not to do it.

When you get beyond the negative emotional thinking - all the reasons why not to do it - and think about the BENEFITS of doing it, you see quickly that it doesn't make sense to continue to do business as a collection of personal computers. Think about every employee having all the forms, documents, and information on their desktop at all time. Think about being able to run your company from your home, or on the road. Think about incorporating your clients on an intimate level providing real service and real information. Think about involving your vendors. When you do business in the cloud the possibilities are endless.

Creating a company intranet is not any harder than creating a web site. The only difference is you are restricting access to intranet web pages through a system of usernames and password. Centralizing a companies IT infrastructure makes them a powerhouse. While the competition fumbles around having files spread over dozens or hundreds of computers, you have your files organized in a central location. When everyone works from the same place the information becomes more detailed AND more accurate.

Take a step in the cloud. It's becoming popular because it works. We've been running companies with web based software for over ten years, including our own. Yes, the Internet goes down occasionally but we don't lose information. It's like anything else, a power outage or other glitch. It happens. But it shouldn't deter you from making the single most important decision you can make - to take your company web based.

Web based companies will rule the marketplace. All industries - health care, construction, and finance - are going this way. You should too. Site Administration makes it easy for you to get started. It provides the basic building blocks to make a big difference now and a deal making decision in the future. Consolidate. Centralize. Computerize your operation in the cloud. Like email, you really can't afford not to do it.