Archive for eds.com

Why IBM Software, SAS, EMC, Intel, Brocade & Deloitte made the cut

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Monday, February 1st, 2010

This week we started our Q1 evaluations of 23 Websites, plus additional sites selected by our clients for comparison.

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). Read More→

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Categories : Branding, Communities, Design, eSelling, POV (point of view), Strategy, Web 2.0
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Does your sales force need a kick in the pants?

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (5)
Monday, March 9th, 2009

An interesting thing happened when I reviewed the search terms used to find our Web properties this week. Search terms with the words ‘eselling’ and ‘b2b buying process’ jumped to over 50% of the total search requests. Dell.com and HP.com – both eselling powerhouses in their own right – ranked second, and the terms “NewEgg” and “CDW” ranked third. Anybody else get the feeling that Web managers are starting to focus on their Website’s selling bottom line?

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. Read More→

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Categories : eSelling, Marketing
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Accenture, EDS and IBM Global Services | Who’s gaining, losing — and why

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (6)
Monday, March 24th, 2008

I’ve just finished an in-depth review of the Q4 2007 scores received by the professional services Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index (Accenture.com, EDS.com, Capgemini.com & IBM Global Services zone) – and it’s becoming clear that Web 2.0 is finally starting to take its toll on this industry segment. Although a rash of new video assets are notable on these sites, usability scores linked to these sites’ design & navigation are starting to slide. It’s a perceptive issue, to be sure, but one that illustrates that Web 2.0-centric behaviors observed at other IT sites (such as Cisco.com) are starting to set user expectations across the board. One look at these sites’ Web 2.0 behaviors underscores that these companies need to get a Web 2.0 strategy in place – and fast.

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, Read More→

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Categories : Website Rankings
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The importance of being well rounded

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (2)
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Ever since we started this happy little band back in ’96, we’ve proposed that one of the hallmarks of a best practices Website is a well rounded volume of content, tools, and resources that are delivered in a manner that allows visitors to easily achieve stated tasks & goals. Through the years, we’ve noted time and again that Web properties like HP.com & IBM.com rise to the top of the competitive eBusiness Index rankings because they provide visitors with copious quantities of fairly evenly distributed assets & data. Not surprisingly, we’ve also reported that sites like Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com (just to name a few) fall to the bottom of the rankings because they deliver smaller, less balanced content catalogs.

What did strike me,  is just how disproportionately these three laggers supply content across their sites—and the fact that the zones in the most trouble are the ones that present information critical to the company’s core business model or market strategy

Over time, we’ve illustrated this point in a variety of ways, including graphs that show relative performance by category; trendlines that demonstrate competitive strengths & weaknesses; charts that identify content density; and tables that list overall scores. This past year, however, we’ve been using a handy little analysis tool called star charts (a.k.a. spider graphs) that allow us to look at evaluation data in a whole slew of new ways, including a view that demonstrates how well rounded a site’s content portfolio really is.

So, when it came time to roll up the fourth quarter 2007 siteIQ eBusiness Index evaluation numbers, I thought it might be interesting to use a star chart that maps competitive performance by category to illustrate just how balanced sites like HP.com & IBM.com really are. Then I decided to juxtapose their content allocation against some of the less stellar performers on the Index including Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com.

Now, I’ve got to tell you that I wasn’t totally surprised at what I saw when I finished entering the data and looked at the chart. Read More→

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Categories : Design, Website Rankings
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Professional services marketing | It’s all about ME!

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

One look at professional services Website’s usability scores show that they’ve been losing ground in 2006.  That, of course, prompted us to ask the obvious question: why?  After spending some time on these sites, we found the answers. Put simply, “It’s all about me!” content behaviors and services marketing architectures that are as clear as mud are taking their toll on professional services sites’ overall effectiveness for visitors.

CapGemini and EDS provide plenty of press releases and 'thought leadership' articles, but nary a link that allows visitors to view services based on business issue or need

CapGemini and EDS provide plenty of press releases and 'thought leadership' articles, but nary a link that allows visitors to view services based on business issue or need

Not sure what we mean by “It’s all about me!” content behaviors? To see these sins in action, point your browser to the home pages of the corporate Websites operated by EDS and Capgemini, or take a look at the screenshots on the left. On these pages, you’ll find plenty of company press releases, news stories and “thought leadership” articles—but nary a link that allows visitors to find or view services based on their business issues or needs.

What’s more, IBM Global Services, which boasts a home page that allows visitors to navigate into the site based on business issue, industry or service type, presents an “IBM Global Business Services” page that ranks as the poster child for these behaviors and—dare we say it—would make Paris Hilton look shy (see the screenshots below). Read More→

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Categories : Marketing, Strategy
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