The term “change management” often creates a feeling of apprehension, or dread, because it is synonymous with widespread organisational restructuring.   In contrast “managing change” more commonly refers to issues that on the face of it appear smaller, but the broader implications of not dealing with these could be far reaching.

A website alteration could be thrust upon you with very little notice as a result of either internal or external factors.  Perhaps you have to add the name of the incoming CEO (and remove the old one), deal with a product recall, or make a brand / slogan amendment.  For these, you may be lucky and receive some forewarning of the work ahead.

Consider the following:  Airline example

An Airline sought help when changing its hire car partner, a single change that was found to affect:

• 120 Countries
• 750 Publishers
• Over 2,000 editors
• 5,500 agents, resellers / booking

This is a task perfectly suited to an automated software solution. Even the first stage of finding instances of content use could prove to take up a huge amount of resources manually.  With SMART Content^™ from Sitemorse, industry, brand and territory rules can be put in place that will prevent content straying outside of set parameters, as well as correcting and optimising your content prior to publish. 

 

The process that needs to be applied to this task:

 

ONE	Update all to ensure correct ‘term’ is used going forward
TWO	Understand where and how ‘term’ is in use
THREE	Prioritise* update content based on content value

 

*Prioritise – i.e. the difference between a PDF that has not been viewed in the last 8 months and content viewed on a social media page receiving many visitors per day.

 

Consistent application of publishing standards can remove over 85% of manual tasks and result in almost immediate improvements for website visitors.  It can also reduce the risk of non-compliance and provide improved optimisation for search.  An important consideration, particularly when you consider our airline example, where this one change of preferred car hire provider would have required:

• 24,000 emails (excluding forwarding)
• 4,600 hours of additional support requests / updates
• Implementation time of 15 months

 

However, with the application and management of a single set of standards which is consistently and automatically applied, the difference is striking:

• ZERO emails
• Implementation time under 3 days
• Additionally, weekly progress updates showing the completion percentage

 

Changes are normally made with positive intentions; the implications of dealing with these needn’t be negative.  However, the practicalities need to be looked at; for a major organisation to manually change even one piece of content across its whole digital portfolio could be quite an undertaking.  Even upon completion there is no guarantee all instances of the old content will found and then amended or replaced.

Change examples:

• Personnel
• Email addresses
• Telephone numbers
• Products
• Content Consolation
• Terminology
• Branding
• Removed/relocated content

Some organisations may find it acceptable that these changes are dealt with over a period of time, which they may even extend.

An external factor may not afford you the same courtesy

If business in a fast moving industry with a homogenous product doesn’t react to competitor price change it is likely to miss opportunities; and if an industry regulatory body demands changes, the implications of not doing so could be devastating to your organisation’s reputation and ability to carry on functioning.

External factors include:

• Industry regulation/legislation
• Territory legislation
• Web legislation e.g. privacy / Cookies Law
• The economy
• Competition
• Customers

Embracing change

Don’t let change become a stumbling block in delivering the best quality web experience to your prospects and customers. Give yourself time to carry out your part of the task: identify the sites that need to be assessed, apply the appropriate rules, then make use of automated digital tools at your disposal in order to be alerted to the changes necessary.  In the future, it will be even simpler, fourth generation automated technology will be able to make these changes for you.