Whatever information exists within any business, it will be a combination of freely available and in-confidence material. The latter is knowledge that can be potentially harmful if made available to outsiders. This obviously includes financial data, but also formulas, some manufacturing processes and so on.
Conversely, the "freely available" information is, in theory, material anyone might reasonably find on the Internet, in sales brochures, industry newsletters and maybe from distributors/resellers. However, it may not always be easy to find so if relevant links are placed on your own website for easy access by your "stakeholders" it can greatly enhance your credibility as the most useful and knowledgeable supplier in the category.
Who needs to know what?
When considering what information is relevant, under what circumstances and to whom, it is essential to decide from the perspective of the various potential users that may actually be a complex mix of "stakeholders" each with different information-needs. Let's take the case of a hypothetical home appliance:
· The ultimate end-user may want reviews relating to performance, details of colour, power consumption, availability, price and reliability.
· The middleman, maybe a retailer or trade reseller, most likely needs to know what trust exists in the brand, how well the item is promoted, who else sells the item, at what price (including shipping charges if any) so he remains competitive.
· An installer does not care about any of the above, merely how simple the item is to fit, whether the technical details are accurate and how efficient is the maintenance and spares service to prevent future hassles.
· Over all this may be an industry watchdog, concerned only with standards or compliance with fair-trading and other consumer issues.
The solution is to balance these needs by providing appropriate information carefully structured to allow each stakeholder to navigate easily to the detail that best suits his specific needs. Without this structure, the results are inevitably clutter or confusion, or both.
Deciding what to control
Somewhere between the two extremes of paranoia and excessive freedom is the balance point for how tightly information needs to be categorised, controlled and published. Small business owners rarely turn to professionals for sales content material. They will get a designer to develop a website, but invariably write the copy themselves. This can be a bad mistake because not only are business owners rarely good copywriters, but excessive restriction of information can make website content or any other sales material meaningless, while being too open with commercially sensitive material only makes it easier for the competitors, or for the potential customers to look elsewhere.
While the larger manufacturer/marketer may have the luxury of specialist staff to provide input, there will be conflicting views on what must (or should be) made available and in what format. The sales, maintenance, spare parts, legal and other heads each will have a valid argument to sustain a particular viewpoint and balancing these issues may not be easy.
The solution is, both for large and small businesses, to develop an Information Matrix, where the characteristics and needs of all user groups are defined, value propositions identified and relevant information classified and structured in appropriate formats, with restriction-controls, if necessary. The latter might include secure logins for certain user groups to access specific material.
Conversely, the "freely available" information is, in theory, material anyone might reasonably find on the Internet, in sales brochures, industry newsletters and maybe from distributors/resellers. However, it may not always be easy to find so if relevant links are placed on your own website for easy access by your "stakeholders" it can greatly enhance your credibility as the most useful and knowledgeable supplier in the category.
Who needs to know what?
When considering what information is relevant, under what circumstances and to whom, it is essential to decide from the perspective of the various potential users that may actually be a complex mix of "stakeholders" each with different information-needs. Let's take the case of a hypothetical home appliance:
· The ultimate end-user may want reviews relating to performance, details of colour, power consumption, availability, price and reliability.
· The middleman, maybe a retailer or trade reseller, most likely needs to know what trust exists in the brand, how well the item is promoted, who else sells the item, at what price (including shipping charges if any) so he remains competitive.
· An installer does not care about any of the above, merely how simple the item is to fit, whether the technical details are accurate and how efficient is the maintenance and spares service to prevent future hassles.
· Over all this may be an industry watchdog, concerned only with standards or compliance with fair-trading and other consumer issues.
The solution is to balance these needs by providing appropriate information carefully structured to allow each stakeholder to navigate easily to the detail that best suits his specific needs. Without this structure, the results are inevitably clutter or confusion, or both.
Deciding what to control
Somewhere between the two extremes of paranoia and excessive freedom is the balance point for how tightly information needs to be categorised, controlled and published. Small business owners rarely turn to professionals for sales content material. They will get a designer to develop a website, but invariably write the copy themselves. This can be a bad mistake because not only are business owners rarely good copywriters, but excessive restriction of information can make website content or any other sales material meaningless, while being too open with commercially sensitive material only makes it easier for the competitors, or for the potential customers to look elsewhere.
While the larger manufacturer/marketer may have the luxury of specialist staff to provide input, there will be conflicting views on what must (or should be) made available and in what format. The sales, maintenance, spare parts, legal and other heads each will have a valid argument to sustain a particular viewpoint and balancing these issues may not be easy.
The solution is, both for large and small businesses, to develop an Information Matrix, where the characteristics and needs of all user groups are defined, value propositions identified and relevant information classified and structured in appropriate formats, with restriction-controls, if necessary. The latter might include secure logins for certain user groups to access specific material.
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