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Century
Homes
7 . Lessons Learnt and Advice for other companies
“If only we had done this sooner!” Gerry
believes that if Century Homes had taken the time
to think about the entire CRM process and the power
of a professional online presence, greater benefits
would have been realised even, sooner. Gerry is proud
of the web site and urges anyone starting out to learn
from its design and content. He also offers the following
advice if starting out:
- Start
with a logical site name that drives relevant global
interest in your product or service i.e. not just
a company name.
- Web
sites widen the market base you operate in. If you
can make and send your product anywhere, this is
a vital marketing tool.
- Invest
time and energy into creating a proper web site.
Think about what you sell and think outside the
box. Then you can do anything.
- Look
at relevant industry web sites. See what you can
do better. In terms of the overall project, Gerry
continued:
- Ignore
technology at your peril! It levels the playing field, reducing relevance
of scale, and if you don’t do this someone else will. It also
enables you to effectively focus on different markets at the same
time.
- Accept
that it will take two years to develop an eBusiness
infrastructure that is in place and fully operational.
- The
support of the internal team cannot be emphasised
enough. They need to be on board and committed to
the project.
8
. Future Plans
That is a continuous process started by Enterprise Ireland
and it the business needs are constantly evolving. They
are always looking for first mover advantage, as the
company strives to further improve efficiency and ensure
a continuous catch up situation for competitors.
A priority is to solve the security issues with the
eBusiness content of the web site. Later, as other site
systems and acquired companies are integrated, the web
site content and facilities can be extended to incorporate
other services and product ranges (for example, online
web ordering of accessory products).
They will continue to move the single unit drawings
onto the web, adding 3D walk-about technology. They
will also use these to drive the builder market. Currently
15 of the designs allow you to change details online,
they aim to increase this to 100 designs in the next
6 months.
Looking at the wider global market, Century Homes has
already registered www.timberframe.info
as the company’s domain as they see ‘.info’
taking dominance as a reference tool. They plan to use
it as a ‘general timber frame’ web site and
link it back to the company’s other sites.
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