Web Analytics and the era of control

If we compare the traditional industry corporation with a contemporary network organization we certainly will find more differences than similarities. If we, however, were to compare that same industry corporation with a traditional modern organization (like: an army), we supposedly would find more similarities than differences.

The classical way of tackling these comparison problems were centered around the identities that constitute the organization, thus aiming at their inner reality. Questions about hierarchy, corporate discipline, efficient decision-making methods, and corporate uniformity were in the very center of this description – and they still could be used to describe a successful company as defined by efficient means of hierarchical structure.

For our current economic environment (particularly in our saturated and volatile western markets) we need to concede a dramatic shift in the coordinate system a corporation needs to master when navigating the deep waters of successfully selling their products: a simple newsletter article about a company being in financial trouble can cause stock prices to plummet.

Which brings us to the core of the problem: it is no longer sufficient to look at the inner constitution of a producing company. Nor does it suffice to present or scrutinize a product portfolio. It is neither a company’s product range nor the inner organization processes (no matter how much the organization stresses its commitment to sustainability or Corporate Responsibility) that determines success from failure.

While for earlier times “control” was seen as both a justification for and an effect of a strictly hierarchical organization, we see a shift in these structures. “Control” has mostly become “indirect control” these days, and corporations aren’t controlled by their own decisions and their own Board of Directors any longer, but they are as well controlled by rating agencies and accounting firms, by their competitors, their customers, and the media.

At the same time new dimensions of control have been enabled for producing companies themselves. Customer Relationship Management systems, real-time logistics systems, and Web Analytics systems have increased corporations’ possibilities for knowing when, and where purchases, customer contacts, increased or reduced demands, and peaks in publicity do happen.

With the words of the German sociologist Dirk Baecker a control surplus is to be conceded: the increased possibility for control brings the problem of failure in control as its reverse side, and control projects of one stakeholder can turn into control problems for another.

The present discussions about the dominance of social networks, and particularly the challenges of controlling both privacy issues and sharing horizons show the bimodal character of the emerging control patterns.
Digital channels, it seems, are both well equipped for establishing control projects and likely to produce control problems.

For corporations (particularly those selling from business to business), the need for controlling and qualifying their prospect contacts (leads) has by now even superseded the importance of product development and portfolio management.

In practice, we see a variant of the same double-faceted control character at work: while the ever same content structure and distinction into “Our products” and “Our Corporation” is still present on most B2B web sites in 2011, we often find a lack of tailored means for entering structured communication with that company on these very same web sites.

Often, particularly with global organizations, “Contact” links often lead to a global phone book, where users have to specify their location (or the location of the department they want to get in touch with), their intent for the contact (sales inquiry, product inquiry, request for proposal, request for contact) as well as their potential interest in one or several of the company’s products.

For the potential buyer, this standardized procedure is at least inconvenient, as all the requested information could easily be seen as already known – if an inquiry is started from the pages of a particular product or service and is coming from a particular IP address (which can be attributed to the user’s geographic location), the only remaining unknown is the purpose of the inquiry.

While this contact process demands a potential buyer to comply with a control project started by that company, it at the same time shows that this very same company has a control problem as it proves unable to leverage the information already at hand. We can assume that corporations tend to focus their control projects on things and patterns said to be in their control: decisions about products and product portfolios seem to be handled more easily than decisions about subsidiary principles allowing local sales organizations to handle their inquiries on their own.

The question raised by the generic double structure of control projects and control problems is: “Which level of ignorance can still be considered harmless?” With the shift from direct to indirect control we have to add the question: “And from which perspective?”
For the given example the question appears in the form of: “Is it really just an inconvenience to make people repeat all their selections already made on a web site just as the department shifts?” “Does this ignorance make prospects turn away from our web site and our company entirely?” – or, in other, and more relevant terms for people with a business background: “Does this ignorance cost our company money?”

What we see here is yet another control problem: if the company could only figure out which of the alternatives are true – and in the terms of the topic discussed here, that is in consequence: if the company started another control project to validate the adequacy of their chosen control approach, which subsequent control problems would emerge from that?

As we have seen for the case of Web Analytics so far: Web Analytics tools offer means for starting and handling control projects. Any Web Analytics project creates further control problems: “What if we don’t like the data?”
Before that, even: “Can we make sure we even can utilize the data we are collecting?” And, if so: “Who owns this data and who has the right to make decisions about altering the data capturing methods, or internal business processes?”

The reason why we haven’t seen Web Analytics change the business culture of companies (except for a selected handful of digital marketplaces) is that any control project involving Web Analytics data capturing creates a set of subsequent control problems for the organization. And the strange thing is: both the data capturing and the problem that shall be solved with it seems to be imposed on the organization from the outside, but the consequences from this control project need to be carried and controlled internally.

With the given organizational constitution for most larger corporations, a culture of change is an utterly impossible thing, as the predominant corporate culture doesn’t provide enough means or resources for handling secondary and tertiary control problems caused by any new control project.

Companies still tend to re-assure themselves primarily by looking at what they can directly control – and that most often means their own inner realities: If sales decline, stronger sales efforts need to be made, lead conversion times are thoroughly looked at, and close scrutiny of the volumes of pending opportunities are the natural reflexes of a company with decreasing sales. The existence of a new competitor, a new competing product, or a new powerful sales channel utilized by other players in the market is not usually in the focus of an organization in trouble.

Maybe this is what has to change in corporate culture: the willingness to see the sequence of control problems and control projects as a continuously repeating pattern. The best lesson to learn from the current economic discussions is not to call for more or less freedom in the markets. Control, or lack of it, is not an ideal state, nor is it indicating a market equlibrium. As soon as a control problem is perceived, a control project is likely to be started to compensate. This will undoubtedly create new control problems which call for new control projects. And so on.
Any corporation or organization ignoring this simple mechanism isn’t very likely to last for long.