At Componence we understand the challenges in achieving a succesfull long tail strategy. Therefore the principles will help your IT department to control your investments with a clear focus to reach the point where you can roll your your long tail strategy:
- Get your business model targets clear. What is the yearly value of your top 5% clients? What is the average yearly value of your target group? What are the revenues of a portal if it will only attract 10% of the business of your current successful portal? Can you divide your target group into at least 20 different segments, each with at least 10% of your targetgroup?
- Make sure to earn money as soon as possible. Start with the standard solutions and killer applications. Make sure that enough features are included to show your business units that the components of your framework are various enough to be combined in many online business concepts. Elements such as your core products, search, killer applications, e-commerce and operational improvements are proven in your first portal.
- Challenge any custom requirement for their ROI. Business users are often convinced that some specific custom features will bring success. Then let them quantify their reasons into a ROI. And if the trend arguments are introduced, implement your components as standard and generic as possible.
- A first portal within 6 months incubation. A first portal must always be launched as soon as possible to evaluate the success of the specific elements (e.g. pages, portlets, business rules) the concept. It’s crucial to find out what is necessary to make the platform more sufficient and generic.
- Developing a follow on sub-portal must cost less than 10% of your initial investments. The main objective is to create portal frame work that is complete and generic enough to will make it possible to launch new portals with less than 2 months.
- Developing a follow on sub-portal must take less than 2 months time. The variables of the generic concept must be clear enough to implement a new portal within 2 months. The goal should be to launch at least enough portals to earn revenues that will at least cover the running operational costs within the same year.
- Keep your business units focused on the long tail concept. Your project teams must not be distracted by the numerous creative requirements that will be submitted by your business. Until the long tail concept is proven, spend at least 50-60% of your investments into requirements that can be generic to serve at least 10 portal concepts.
- Keep a separate framework development track. Make sure that your project teams do not mix the framework with your projects. There must be a separate project board supported by your program board to maintain and develop the generic framework.