Market Conditions

Vendors, Partners, Customers and Competition

A very good starting point when searching for helpful information about possible applications of technology is to check out what your competition is doing online.  Known and newly discovered competition can provide valuable information.  Research of possible competitors online can help you to quickly identify new strategies and trends.

Another thing that is important to success is understanding how you can use your site to better serve customers.  Are there things that your customers are already asking for you to provide online?  If customers in your industry are highly mobile, are there services you could provide that would increase loyalty? 

While many web strategies have focused on interaction with end consumers, there may also be advantages to be gained in interacting with vendors and business partners.  Review your relations with other businesses to determine if there are significant advantages to be realized by improving flow of operational information or even by sharing knowledge.  Integration with vendor systems and in house systems to decrease response time of supply chains can be achieved using the web as a backbone.