Overall: Accenture.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Accenture.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Accenture.com

Last week, we took a close look at how classic professional services Websites fare when they are put under the siteIQ microscope–and made some pretty substantial changes in the ways these Websites are measured on the siteIQ benchmarks. The net result is a much slimmer benchmark that hones in on the unique ways these companies do business on the Web.

Since there’s no time like the present to see the impact of these changes, we put the three professional services Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index through this new evaluation model. Then we published the results in a new report.

So how did things change?

A lot.

First and foremost, Accenture.com moved from second to first place courtesy of very strong navigational, search, and services marketing scores. Services marketing now rates a Good Practice. As important, Accenture.com’s overall usability beats all comers.

IBM Global Services’ Website ended up in a reasonably close second place. It matches Accenture.com’s services marketing Good Practice, but took it on the chin in the navigation and search categories. Just goes to show you that paying attention to those pesky architecture and cross-site utilities can make a huge difference.

And how did Deloitte.com fare in a rising tide that floated all boats? Ho hum. It still ranks third and gained one star–but missed the Good Practice dock by a mile. This site’s best showing is in (yikes!) online recruiting. On the other hand, every services and corporate marketing category ranks third.

And what about the rest of 2012? We’re betting that IBM Global Services’ slow motion revamp will start to pay dividends by the end of this year. That means that Accenture.com shouldn’t rest on its laurels–and should pay close attention to the cult of personality strategy IBM.com is rolling out.

More scoring details, plus new rankings and ratings, are available in our new Professional Services Report. If you already own a copy of our earlier report, a new copy is on the way to your desktop. Library subscribers can pick up their copy here (you’ll need those pesky log in credentials). If you aren’t a subscriber you can learn more about The Library here.

We’ve mixed up the siteIQ eBusiness Index for 2010. In some cases the decision was based on eliminating Websites that haven’t improved over the past year and don’t provide any good or best practices worth tracking. In other cases, sites have fallen off our list because they don’t exist anymore. That would be EDS.com which was integrated into HP.com — and Sun.com which went off the airwaves last week.

In both cases, these sites are a loss to anyone who cares about good and great practices. Don’t bother to follow them to their new homes. Their presence inside of their new parent’s sites is nothing to write home about.

Here’s some more about the new sites added to our roster – and why we’re singing “auld lang syne” to others. (If you are a siteIQ client you can read more about what we expect from these and other leading sites in 2010 in our new executive brief in the siteIntelligence Research Center).

IBM Software Group (zone): We’ve been evaluating and tracking IBM.com’s software zone for years as part of our custom client programs. This year it’s time for this zone to move onto the eBusiness roster. It should be interesting to see how this aging and oft cluttered design fares against competitors who are adopting new, highly efficient designs and Web 2.0 features that play directly to the B2B buying process. Don’t even get me started about communities — which are a blooming mess (tag: enterprise software)

SAS: We decided to replace Microsoft’s Dynamics zone with SAS.com this year for a simple reason. We’ve been tracking Microsoft’s enterprise software zone for years under the assumption that it would eventually figure out how to sell to large enterprises and step up to equal footing with the big boys. That never happened. This zone has been a step-child on this site from the get-go and it’s essentially invisible today. This year we decided to take off our miner’s helmets and replace this zone with SAS.com.

The case for SAS.com comes more from its industry presence than its Website footprint. It’s a perfectly mediocre site that seems to have missed the memos on Web 2.0 and social media marketing behaviors. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see how it stacks up against the other big boys in the enterprise software industry. If you are looking for a new leader though, I wouldn’t hold my breath. (tag: enterprise software)

EMC.com: EMC.com is new to our roster in 2010 and we’ve put it in the enterprise systems category. It’s a bit of an odd fit, but we think this is the segment that best matches its strategy and focus. Needless to say, EMC.com has come a long way over the past few years and it’s another example of a site that is maximizing Web 2.0 elements and creating standards for high impact designs. From a first blush perspective, it’s a small but mighty site in the spirit of Adobe.com.  It will be interesting to see where the site excels – and where it misses the mark in 2010. (tag: enterprise systems)

Sun.com: Last week, Sun.com went off the airwaves and was stuffed into a few pages on the Oracle.com site. Thus, ends the life of one of the IT industry’s most innovative and useful Websites.

To see why, let’s look at just a few of Sun.com’s industry “firsts.” It pioneered communities on the Web; embraced Web 2.0 when it was just a spec on the horizon; was the first to deploy tab top designs to consolidate content into manageable bites; automatically discounted prices in its (public) ecommerce system based on the customer’s contractual relationship; pioneered dashboards that allowed customers to customize information to their needs: operated the industry’s largest (java.com) and most diverse range of developer portals; and designed the industry’s first contextual search engine that organized results by objective, type, or role. Oh, and one thing else. It did all of this while ranking #1 in usability over the past 6 years.

All in all, a stellar run for the record book. It’s too bad that the company’s business strategy (and the CXOs that ran it) weren’t as effective as this site.

Intel.com: Intel.com is one of the industry’s most interesting studies because it marches to the tune of a truly unique drummer. Instead of marketing Intel’s products and services with sales as the end game, this site is focused on conditioning markets to prefer (and preferably demand) products built on Intel technologies — and then reward companies that sell Intel-based products by driving buyers directly to their Websites or retail stores. In simple terms, Intel.com isn’t chartered to sell Intel’s chips; it’s responsible for making sure that Intel is the buyers’ preferred brand.

From this perspective, Intel.com has always been one of few pure play ‘brand’ Websites. It’s also one of the first sites to effectively harness communities and Web 2.0 behaviors to start a conversation with users and buyers. For these and other reasons, we’re glad to welcome Intel.com to the 2010 eBusiness Index. May the best brand player win.

Brocade.com: Has anyone else noticed that the network systems industry is consolidating like a cardboard box in the rain? If not, spend some quality time looking for a fourth network systems Website (we also evaluate Cisco.com, Nortel.com and Juniper.net twice a year.  that has any best practices and is larger than a newt. After we spent some quality time considering the candidates, we flipped a coin between Brocade.com and Enterasys.com. Brocade.com won the toss.

We’ve got some real hope for Brocade.com in 2010 since it boasts a bevy of Web 2.0 behaviors, uses the same mega-menus as Juniper.net, and operates communities that show some promise. Of course, the devil’s in the details. Stay tuned for the results from our first evaluation which will be available in Q2 2010. (tag: network systems)

Deloitte.com: Deloitte’s inclusion on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster is due, in large part, to EDS.com riding into the sunset. Quite frankly, we’re glad to have a reason to shake up the professional services sites we cover. Most of them have been skating on the innovation and design fronts for too many years.

Deloitte provides a much needed breath of fresh air to our professional services roster. It’s built on a well crafted design and its lively first person voice takes much of the voodoo out of the consulting services conversation. All in all, we expect Deloitte.com to raise the bar for Accenture.com, and especially IBM Global Services. It should be interesting to see how those sites stack up now that there’s a new deputy sheriff in town.  (tag: professional services)

Here’s the rest of the sites we’ll be evaluating in 2010. If you are a siteIQ client, you can read more about these sites’ strengths and challenges in our new executive brief in the siteIntelligence Research Center.

• Adobe.com
• Microsoft.com
• Symantec.com
• CA.com
• Oracle.com
• SAP.com
• Dell.com
• HP.com
• IBM.com
• Cisco.com
• Nortel.com
• Juniper.net
• CDW.com
• Insight.com
• NewEgg.com
• Accenture.com
• IBM Global Services (zone)

What do you think of these sites? Sound off in comments

These stats don’t come as much of a surprise since tough times call for more attention to how effectively the company’s Website creates – and more importantly, harvests – qualified prospects. Face it, nothing beats a Website for its global reach and the ability to win and woo potential buyers at the lowest possible cost.

Given these realities, it should be really interesting to see if the sales forces we test have finally gotten eselling religion. I wouldn’t bet on it

This, of course, brings me to an interesting question. Assuming the Website does its job, what happens next? Are salespeople actually contacting ‘anatomically correct’ prospects streaming in from your Website – or is your sales force still playing the same games we’ve seen in previous years? Which leading IT companies are doing the best job harvesting interested buyers? Which companies need to kick their sales force in the pants?

Since selling is the name of the game these days, we’ve decided to launch our 10th siteIQ Secret Prospect study this week. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this study, here’s the basic approach in four easy steps.

1. We create a fictitious buyer with the right title, authority, budget, and buying timeline.
2. We go out to every Website on the siteIQ eBusiness Index, pick one or more products or categories, and test different ways to engage with the sales force. We fill out the contact forms, send emails, and hit the “call me now” buttons. About the only thing we don’t bother to do is request an online chat (previous tests show that these features typically work like a charm).
3. Along the way, we document every part of the process. We identify how many inappropriate questions are required on forms. We note all of the promises made, including when we should receive a response. We check to make sure privacy policies are front and center. After we’re finished, we measure how effectively the company continues to market to prospects and how efficiently it connects them back to the right place on the site.
4. Then we sit back and start the stopwatch. We track when the salesperson calls, when we receive various emails – and how often the company’s sales organization reaches out. After 18 days, we close the study, add up the numbers, and publish the results.

Looks pretty simple, but the results can sometimes be damning. I’ve provided a peek into how companies like Oracle, IBM, HP, Adobe, CA, Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, Nortel, Accenture, and EDS fared in our last test in the siteIntelligence Research Center (siteIQ clients can log in here). From a big picture perspective, here’s how the industry’s biggest players tend to behave.

• Getting a response across a company’s product groups is largely the luck of the draw. One product group will respond within minutes, while others fiddle around for days (if you are lucky).
• About half of our requests go into a black hole. Meanwhile, sales chat almost always delivers the goods, while request a quote and email requests are hit and miss at best.
• Handoffs to partners almost never work (typically a function of incompetent handoffs, plus partners who apparently don’t like the vendor’s leads).
• Finally, few companies follow up on prospect requests unless the prospect calls back – and almost none use email (cheap, fast, and effective) to keep prospects warm.

Given these realities, it should be really interesting to see if the sales forces we test have finally gotten eselling religion. I wouldn’t bet on it. After nine of these tests, my bet is that we’ll see the same old dysfunctional behaviors. On the other hand, I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised. We’ll be posting real-time results in the siteIntelligence Research Center — and will publish the winners and losers here in April. Stay tuned.

IBM Global Services got clobbered by siteIQ evaluators for an unruly site that makes it difficult for potential buyers to decipher one service offering from another.

Web 2.0 aside, other interesting findings jumped out this quarter.

IBM Global Services got clobbered by siteIQ evaluators for an unruly site that makes it difficult for potential buyers to decipher one service offering from another. As our senior evaluator Jeff Gaff aptly put it “eventually one can locate information, but it takes a bit of shuffling. Everything bounces back and forth so much that it becomes quite easy to get lost.” One of the culprits here appears to be the seemingly endless confusion between various services entities. In other words, building a site around organizational structures is still the fastest way to confuse and befuddle potential buyers.

In its final showing on the siteIQ eBusiness Index, Capgemini.com’s scores took a hit for a rash of errors and misfires that made the site look like something had gone off the digital rails.  Overall, it ended up in fourth place among the professional services sites we study. This persistent ranking – plus a dearth of any interesting strengths or moments of brilliance over the past 24 months – means that we’ll have to bid adios to Capgemini.com in 2008. The CSC.com site will take its place.

From an overall perspective, Accenture.com’s scores held up well under the siteIQ microscope in Q4 2007, and it came in second based on overall points (1,944) but is actually in a virtual tie with EDS.com for the siteIQ brass ring. Like most of the sites in this segment, Accenture lost points due to the changing role of Web 2.0 – and an events section that is woefully out of date.

With 2,013 points, EDS.com is the points winner in Q4 2007 – although its slim lead over Accenture.com shows that it is hardly in a position to rest on its laurels (EDS has slightly higher scores; Accenture.com has slightly more ‘stuff’). EDS.com got a slight bump in its usability scores this quarter due to improved call to action behaviors, but other than that Q4 was status quo.

In its final showing on the siteIQ eBusiness Index, Capgemini.com’s scores took a hit for a rash of errors and misfires that made the site look like something had gone off the rails.

SITEIQ VIEW | It should be interesting to see what CSC.com brings to the party in 2008 and how well it holds up when compared to Accenture.com, EDS.com and the IBM Global Services zone. My preliminary look at CSC suggests that it will probably fall somewhere between Accenture and EDS but, like all things at siteIQ, the devil will be in the details. Our Q1 2008 professional services evaluations will start in 11 days – so stay tuned.

In the meantime, Nicole and team will be working on the full set of Q4 2007 professional services scoring results — which should start hitting the airwaves in about six weeks. If you are a siteIntelligence subscriber, look for a report alert in your inbox.