The Internet is the flavour of the day. Is your company
Internet-ready? Take this quiz and find out. Score 1 point for every
Yes answer.
E-mail is the killer application in today’s context on the
Internet. Email can and should be made critical to your
business. Email does not work if half your company has it, and the
other half doesn’t. If you can use email well, you will find that you
are not only able to communicate better and faster, but that your
communications costs will come down.
1. Do you have an email address of the form name@companyname.com or
name@companyname.co.in?
2. Is your email delivered to your desktop when you are in office?
3. Do you reply to your email personally (i.e., it is not printed
out by your secretary, marked up by you, and replied by your secretary?)
4. When you are out of the office, can you access your email anytime and from anywhere?
5. At all times, wherever you are, does your e-mail address remain the same?
6. Does the e-mail account for every person in the company satisfy the above
conditions, irrespective of their office location?
7. Are your email costs independent of the number of messages and the size of
the messages?
Internet Access
The Internet is today the primary source of news and business
information. Internet access is important for having people exposed to
new ideas and developments. For example, your marketing department can
use it source customers in international markets by visiting their
websites and writing to them.
8. Do all employees in your office have Internet Access from their desktops?
9. Can you monitor the sites people access, i.e., is the access through a Proxy Server?
Website
The website is your public face to the world. It is like being able to
publish your own newspaper. Think of it as being your global
office. Give it as much importance.
10. Does your company have a website?
11. Is the URL of the site independent of the service provider?
12. Was it updated in the past 2 weeks?
13. Do you have the latest developments on your company (e.g. financials,
press releases, new products) on the website?
14. Do you a Webmaster internally co-ordinating the website and its updates?
15. If an inquiry were to come through the website, would the
sender receive a reply within one business day?
16. Do you keep a database of the email addresses that came in via theseinquiries?
17. Does all your promotional material (business cards, letterheads,
brochures, ads) carry the website address?
Intranet/Extranet/E-Commerce
The Net can help you communicate better with your own employees, and a
closed user group (the companies/agencies you deal with on a regular
basis). Business-to-business and business-to-consumer electronic
commerce are rapidly reshaping entire industries in the West. Expect
the same to happen in India — faster than you can imagine. The Net
cuts across geographical barriers — meaning that companies from
anywhere can sell to your clients. It also means that you can sell to
their clients.
18. Do you have an Intranet for your employees?
19. Do you have an Extranet for your customers?
20. Do you have a strategy to sell / do business via the Net?
Scoring
| 16-20: |
Excellent, you are truly an eCorporate and ready for the Internet Economy. |
| 12-15: | Good, but you need to still fix the holes, and move up the ladder. |
| 8-11: | Average. While you have made some progress, there is a need for action on other fronts. Quickly. |
| < 8: |
A lot of work lies ahead for you. You need to put together an Internet strategy first. Success in the past does not guarantee leadership in the future. |
